fcibrarp  of  the  theological  Seminar;? 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ROBERT  ELLIOTT  SPEER 

BV  5031  . S4  1923 
Sedgwick,  Henry  Dwight,  186 
-1957 . 

Pro  vita  monastics 


0<U.  c  W  t  -  li  ■  ' 

C-Sb  P\  - 


pto  Vkita  (J?onaetica 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/provitamonasticaOOsedg 


to  li Vita  Gtyonaotica 

AN  ESSAY  IN  DEFENCE  OF 


THE  CONTEMPLATIVE  VIR¬ 


TUES  BY  HENRY  DWIGHT  SEDGWICK 

AUTHOR  OF  “LIFE  OF  MARCUS  AURELIUS,”  “DANTE,” 
“AN  APOLOGY  FOR  OLD  MAIDS,”  “ITALY  IN  THE  THIR¬ 
TEENTH  CENTURY,”  “A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  ITALY,”  fife. 


BOSTON 

Jt tCantic  Gftontflfp  pteee 


MDCCCCXXIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1923,  BY  HENRY  DWIGHT  SEDGWICK 


D.  B. UPDIKE  THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS- BOSTON 
PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


3!n  (fyemotiam 

Xu,  tl?e  vcdi  i  miei  malt  indegnt  cd  cmpi, 

■Re  del  cielo,  invi0tbile,  immortale, 

•Soccorri  all*  alma  diovtata  e  frale, 
g’l  euo  difetto  di  tua  gra)ia  adempt: 
cl?e,  a*  to  V1001  in  guerra  cd  in  tentpc0ta, 
il)ora  in  pace  ed  in  porto;  e  ee  la  0tan5a 
5u  vana,  almen  0ia  la  partita  oncata. 

H  quel  poco  di  vtver  cl?e  in’ avanja 
£d  al  morir  degni  e00er  tua  man  preota 
Xu  0a i  ben  clje  n’  altrui  non  l?o  operanja. 

“Petrarcl? 


jCoquar  ad  ©omnium  meum  cum  sim  pulvia  et  cinis. 

£l?omas  a  *Rempi0 

Jili,  non  potes  perfcctam  possiderc  Itbertatem,  nisi 
totaliter  abneges  temetipsum. 

Xljoma s  a  Rcmpis 


£Dan  sl?all  find  grace; 
Snd  sl?alt  not  grace  find  mean*?,  tl?at  finds  ljer  wap, 
Xl?e  speediest  of  rbp  winged  messengers, 

Xo  visit  all  tl?v  creatures? 


XOilton 


TKien  ne  donne  le  repos  que  la  red?erd?e  sincere  de  la 
verite. 


•pascal 


rtTaBfc  of  Contents 

Page 

PREFACE  ix 

I  THE  WORLD  AND  THE  RECLUSE  3 

II  DISILLUSION  12 

III  THE  VOICE  OF  AUTHORITY  16 

IV  THE  VALUE  OF  PRECEDENT  23 

V  SAINT  ANTHONY  28 

VI  SAINT  BENEDICT  37 

VII  THOMAS  A  KEMPIS  44 

VIII  SENANCOUR, EUGENIE  DE  GUERIN,  AND  AMIEL  51 
IX  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION  58 
X  SOME  GROUNDS  OF  DOUBT  63 

XI  THE  BOUNTIES  OF  SOLITUDE  71 

XII  THE  VEGETABLE  PATCH  78 

XIII  THE  FLOWER  GARDEN  85 

XIV  THE  LIBRARY  91 

XV  THE  SPIRITUAL  POWER  OF  SEX  98 

XVI  THE  REALM  OF  TRUTH  104 

XVII  SELF-EXAMINATION  115 

XVIII  THE  ORATORY  123 

XIX  SPIRITUAL  EXERCISES  131 

XX  THE  USUAL  REPROACH  138 

XXI  THE  GREAT  HUMAN  NEED  148 

APPENDIX  157 


ptcface 

T  is  common  for  persons  who  may 
be  classed  as  indifferent  concern¬ 
ing  religious  matters ,  to fin 
with  current  Christianity ,  at  least 
as  it  shows  itself  in  Protestant  churches ,  to  speak 
slightingly  of  it ,  saying  that  Christianity  has  lost 
its  hold  upon  the  people ,  does  not  lead  in  mat¬ 
ters  of  conduct  nor  in  ideal  purposes ,  does  not 
produce  any  radiant  personalities  or  examples 
of  heroic  self-sacrifice ,  does  not  persuade  people 
that  its  conceptions  of  truth  concerning  the  ulti¬ 
mate  ends  and  meaning  of  life  can  be  of  any 
significance  to  them ,  does  not  help  in  the  solution 
of  social  problems  —  in  shorty  that  Christianity 
has  become  a  laggard ,  a  tagger-on  to  society , 
a  hindrance  to  freedom  of  thought  and  action , 
serving  as  an  excuse  for  self -content  to  those  who 
find  themselves  well  off  in  the  existing  state  of 
things  and  are  really  unconcerned  about  the  soul , 


ptcfacc 

Nor  is  that  the  only  sort  of  criticism  to  which 
Christianity  lies  open .  During  the  war ,  it  was 
plain  enough  that  in  each  of  the  warring  coun¬ 
tries  religion  had  been  cast  afresh  in  the  ancient 
mould  of  a  tribal  god .  And  for  years  before  the 
war ,  many  religious-minded  persons  regarded 
ecclesiastical  Christianity  as  a  sort  of  hardening 
of  the  spirit  that  hindered  the free  play  of  human 
hopes  for  a  better  world . 

I  have  no  concern  with  the  justice  or  injus¬ 
tice  of  such  criticisms ,  I  merely  note  that  they 
are  widespread  and  are  uttered  nowadays  even 
more  by  persons  who  believe  in  Christianity  as 
a  factor for  spiritual  good  than  by  those  who  do 
not ,  and  further  that  these  faultfinders ,  so  far 
as  I  know ,  are  in  full  accord  with  the  most  de¬ 
vout  Christians  in  the  belief  that  Christ  taught 
the  most  direct ,  possibly  the  only ,  way  toward 
the  goal  of  spiritual  endeavor ,  which  he  called 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven . 


ptefacc 

It  would  be  quite  beside  my  purpose  to  treat 
such  great  questions  as  to  what  truth  there  may 
be  in  Christianity ,  whether  of  fact  or  symbol , 
or  as  to  whether  it  is  for  the  good  of  mankind 
that  Christianity ,  organized  as  it  is ,  should  con¬ 
tinue;  I  merely  wish  to  lay  stress  upon  the  fact 
that ,  for  one  reason  and  another ,  Christianity , 
at  least  among  Protestants ,  has  cast  aside ,  or 
dropped  out ,  <2  gmz/  of  the  ancient  prac¬ 
tices  that  during  many  centuries  helped  it  adapt 
itself  to  human  needs ,  enabled  it  to  produce  heroic 
and  radiant  personalities ,  and  shed  over  it  a 
poetry  which  it  now  lacks .  I  refer  to  the  prac¬ 
tices  of  withdrawal  from  the  world  of  ordinary 
life  and  from  the  usual  occupations  of  men ,  into 
some  solitary  or  sequestered  place,  where  in  her¬ 
mitage  or  monastery  they  might  give  themselves 
up  to  contemplation ,  meditation ,  and  prayer ,  and 
to  such  labors  in  library  or  garden  as  should  best 
fit  the  mind  to  be  the  dwelling-place  of  what- 


pteface 

ever  thoughts  might  seem  to  them  the  highest , 
best ,  and  most  beautiful . 

And  as ,  to  my  way  of  thinking ,  jwc/z  seques¬ 
tered  habits  and  practices  are  of  the  essence  of 
Christianity ,  for  without  them  it  goes  about  its 
task,  halt  and  tnaim.d,  in  hoptlts,  inadejuacy, 
so  also  I  believe  that  the  individual  life ,  unless 
it  take  advantage  of  those  practices^  withdraw¬ 
ing  apart  to  think  high  thoughts ,  and  to  reconsider 
by  the  light  of  such  thoughts  its  hopes ,  ambitions , 
and  desires ,  is  and  must  be  imperfect . 

1 The  mass  of  men  are  absorbed  in  animal  ex¬ 
istence  and  indifferent  to  such  matters ;  but  there 
are  always  a  few ,  bewildered  by  the  “  burden 
of  the  mystery who  would  like  to  set  forth  in 
quest  of  the  spiritual  life .  I  do  not  suggest  the 
literal  revival  of  ancient  monasticism ;  I  coun¬ 
sel  no  one  to  set  out  for  the  'Thebaid  or  Monte 
Gassino ,  St.  Gall  or  Giteaux.  The  seeker  need  go 
no  further  than  to  an  upper  chamber  in  his  own 

[  xii  ] 


fitef ace 

dwelling  or  to  a  secluded  corner  of  his  own  gar¬ 
den ,  or  to  any  other  place  where ,  by  means  of 
such  accompaniments  as  suit  retirement ,  —  books , 
fowers ,  music ,  meditation ,  prayer , — <2 
may  refresh  his  spirit  and  wash  the  dust  from 
his  soul ,  whether  his  retirement  be  for  half  an 
hour  a  day ,  or  to  a  retreat  for  a  week  once  a 
year ,  or,  if  he  be  so  minded  and  his  situation 
permits,  for  such  proportion  of  his  time  as  shall 
best  prosper  him  upon  his  spiritual  quest. 

Until  recently  this  doctrine  of  a  retreat  with 
its  attendant  circumstances  had  been  one  of  the 
chief  teachings  of  the  Church .  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  Christianity  asserted  the  superior¬ 
ity  of  the  contemplative  life  over  the  active  life. 
Dante ,  the  noblest  voice  of  Christian  tradition , 
says In  this  life  we  can  have  two  kinds  of  hap¬ 
piness  by  following  two  different  roads ,  both  good 
and  excellent — one  road  is  the  Active  Life ,  by 
which  we  may  attain  to  a  fair  state  of  happi- 

[  ] 


ptefacc 

that  'which  the  world  deems  desirable ,  and  that 
by  so  doing  she  satisfies  the  spiritual  needs  of  her 
members^  forgetting  that  the  business  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  not  merely  to  satisfy  the  spiritual  needs 
that  she  finds ,  but  also  to  deepen  and  broaden  and 
heighten  those  that  exists  and  to  create  new  needs 
as  well . 

To  the  outsider ,  however ,  it  is  plain  that  the 
Church  has  not  made  this  radical  change  of  her 
own  volition ;  she  has  yielded  to  the  importunate 
and  the  worldly .  The  triumph  of  the  active  vir¬ 
tues  over  the  contemplative  is  not  a  triumph  of 
religion  but  of  the  worlds  just  as  the  great  social 
and  political  revolution  in  the  fourth  century , 
which  text-books  upon  history  call  the  victory  of 
Christianity ,  was  also  in  reality  the  triumph  of 
the  world  over  religion .  And  if  Christianity  is  to 
turn  about  again  and  lead ,  if  not  the  many ,  at 
least  the  few  that  seek  the  spiritual  life ,  she  must 
supplement  her  active  virtues  with  the  contem- 

[  *vi  ] 


ptcface 

plative  virtues  and  the  practice  of  them ,  and 
enlarge  her  ideal  of  service  with  the  notion  that 
to  meditate  upon  things  divine  until  all  lesser 
desires  fall  away  is  to  render  a  service  to  men 
at  least  equal  to  those  rendered  by  the  active 
virtues . 

My  purpose  in  this  little  book  is  limited  to  a 
consideration  of  the  rift  between  the  world  and 
the  religious  spirit ,  as  it  has  existed  throughout 
the  course  of  Christianity  and  exists  still ;  the 
thesis  being  that  the  contemplative  life ,  by  which 
I  mean  the  definite  and  regular  practice  of  medi¬ 
tation ,  prayer ,  and  the  restriction  of  one's  society 
to  books  and flowers,  for  certain  times,  is  neces¬ 
sary  for  that  serenity  of  spirit  which  is  now  and 
always  has  been  the  chief  need  of  mankind ;  for 
upon  serenity  of  spirit  depends  our  power  to  see 
truth ,  to  do  justice ,  and  to  think  no  evil . 

H.  D.  S. 

March ,  1923 


xvii 


}0ro  Qlita  fi^onaetica 


* 


3 1 

fcfje  Worfb  anb  t(je  IKecf me 

Xtyc  world  to  too  mucl?  witl?  us. 

Wordsworth 

SOCIETY  depends  for  its  well¬ 
being  upon  an  ability  to  make  use 
of  its  latent  energy.  In  time  of  war 
most  societies,  such  as  our  own 
nation,  develop  a  power  to  draw 
upon  moral  and  mental  resources  of  all  kinds, 
of  which,  in  times  of  ease,  they  had  not  been 
aware.  Physical  danger  has  a  magic  virtue,  it 
doubles  the  strength  of  the  strong,  the  craft  of 
the  cunning,  and  the  nobility  of  the  noble.  This 
is  the  one  good  that  can  be  ascribed  to  war.  But 
in  times  of  peace  the  reservoirs  of  devotion,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  heroism  empty  themselves  into  the 
dry  sands  of  ordinary  life,  and  the  power  of  set¬ 
ting  an  idea  high  above  all  material  things  fades 
like  a  mirage.  One  of  the  chief  problems  of  so¬ 
cial  life  is  how  to  find,  and  how  to  put  to  use, 
whatever  spiritual  forces  there  may  be  in  indi¬ 
viduals.  It  is  a  religious  problem  and  as  such 
should  belong  to  organized  Christianity.  But 
many  people  have  lost  faith  in  Christianity,  at 
least  in  its  modern  Protestant  form.  They  con- 

[  3  ] 


pto  Vtita  Qftonaetica 

sider  Christian  communities  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  are  forced  to  conclude  that  our  pro¬ 
fessed  religion  renders  little  or  no  spiritual  ser¬ 
vice;  the  more  radical  go  so  far  as  to  regard  it 
as  a  wholly  unsuccessful  experiment,  while  even 
the  more  conservative  believe  that,  somehow  or 
other,  it  has  lost  access  to  a  reservoir  of  strength 
that  it  once  possessed. 

My  thesis  then  is,  that  the  fate  of  Christian¬ 
ity  lies  in  its  power  to  recover,  and  make  use  of, 
those  resources  of  the  spirit  from  which  in  earlier 
times  it  drew  innocence,  peace,  serenity,  and  joy. 
And  as  the  way  to  recover  those  qualities,  that 
ancient  Christian  poise  and  radiance  of  spirit,  is 
neither  smooth  nor  easy,  an  attempt  to  consider 
the  nature  of  the  road  pursued  by  men  who  in 
the  past  attained  their  goal,  as  well  as  the  causes 
that  may  impel  others  to-day  to  undertake  the 
quest,  may  not  be  amiss,  especially  if  the  attempt 
be  made  in  the  hope  that  those  Christians  who 
are  concerned  over  the  fate  of  Christianity  may 
help  and  encourage  such  seekers  on  their  way. 

Among  the  many  lines  of  demarcation  that 
divide  men,  that  one  to  which  I  wish  to  address 
myself  creates  two  classes  of  very  unequal  size. 

One  class  comprises  all  people  who  lead  what 
it  is  usual  to  call  normal  lives,  men  and  women 

t  4  ] 


(Gtfe  WotC 5  anfc  tfje  Bxecfuee 

who  take  their  places  in  the  fabric  of  the  social 
whole  as  a  matter  of  course,  both  in  the  work¬ 
room  and  the  playground  of  life;  who  seek  out 
other  people,  set  store  by  acquaintances,  do  busi¬ 
ness  with  one  another,  enter  upon  joint  enter¬ 
prises,  join  guilds  and  clubs,  cultivate  curiosity 
concerning  their  fellows,  and  in  every  way  look 
upon  themselves  primarily  as  members  of  a  so¬ 
cial  organism.  Such  people,  taken  together,  con¬ 
stitute  the  World.  The  other  class  comprises 
those  persons  who,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
whether  native  disposition  or  the  experiences  of 
life,  shun  human  relationships,  slink  away  from 
their  fellows,  and  seek  to  loosen  all  the  ties  by 
which  life  without  their  doing  has  bound  them 
to  the  World:  in  short,  to  live,  so  far  as  may  be 
practicable,  by  themselves  and  to  themselves. 

A  division  into  classes  marked  by  such  con¬ 
trasting  opinions  implies  antagonism;  but  there 
has  been  and  is  more  antagonism  between  the 
World  and  the  recluse  than  the  mere  acceptance 
of  opposing  ideals  necessarily  implies.  This  is 
due  partly  to  historical  causes,  but  chiefly  be¬ 
cause  the  contrast  between  their  opposing  ideals 
is  sharper  and  of  a  higher  emotional  pitch  than 
usually  happens  between  differing  categories. 

The  World  professes  liberality,  a  desire  to 

[  5  ] 


pto  Vlita  Oftonaetica 

leave  every  man  free  to  pursue  his  own  ideals 
according  to  his  own  lights.  But  in  practice  the 
World  finds  this  maxim  too  difficult  to  carry 
out,  and  by  open  reproach  or  secret  slur  con¬ 
demns  the  recluse  for  abandoning  what,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  World’s  way  of  thinking,  are  the 
social  duties  of  all  men.  It  would  be  a  good  thing 
if  liberty  to  pursue  their  ideals  were  granted  to 
all  men.  Life  as  a  whole  is  richer  according  to 
the  measure  of  its  diversities;  for  each  man  who 
endeavors  to  bring  his  life  into  conformity  with 
his  own  ideal  must  perforce  contribute  some¬ 
thing  to  the  general  good.  The  sum  of  ideals 
that  men  strive  after  constitutes  the  true  wealth 
of  mankind.  The  social  whole,  whether  the  re¬ 
cluse  likes  it  or  not,  is  a  unity;  and  anyone 
who  seriously  seeks  to  live  his  own  life  to  his 
own  highest  satisfaction  necessarily  renders  the 
greatest  social  service  in  his  power.  This  is  ob¬ 
vious;  and  in  matters  that  do  not  touch  its  amour 
propre  the  World  encourages  diversity,  or  at  least 
follows  its  principle  of  giving  to  each  man  his 
liberty.  There  may  be  differences  of  taste,  but 
open  disapprobation  of  a  contrary  taste  is  rarely 
present.  One  man  may  feel  inwardly  certain  that 
his  ways  of  living  and  doing  are  better  than  the 
ways  of  his  neighbor,  nevertheless  he  does  not 

[  6  ] 


Wottb  anb  ttfe  5Rccfuee 

proceed  to  the  logical  complement  of  his  thought 
and  decry  the  opposite  ways  of  living  and  doing. 
But  in  the  disagreement  between  the  World  and 
the  recluse  an  element  of  hostility  bristles  up. 
The  cause  is  plain.  The  recluse  has  turned  his 
back  upon  the  World  because  he  does  not  like 
the  World,  and  the  World  takes  umbrage  and 
stigmatizes  his  departure  as  desertion.  The  two 
views  of  life  are  opposites,  mutually  exclusive, 
like  heat  and  cold,  and  the  only  way  to  recon¬ 
cile  them  is  by  some  hypothesis  of  a  more  com¬ 
prehensive  whole  that  shall  include  them  both, 
as  a  full  day  includes  both  noontide  and  the 
night. 

The  World  is  busy  with  work  and  pleasure; 
early  and  late  it  toils  and  sweats;  it  sows  and 
reaps;  it  converts  forest  into  pasture  and  swamp 
into  cornfield;  it  digs  a  thousand  hidden  sub¬ 
stances  out  of  the  depths  of  the  earth;  it  builds 
ships,  railroads,  cities;  it  stirs  up  individuals, 
communities,  nations,  to  greater  and  greater  eco¬ 
nomic  effort;  and  it  makes  war.  In  short,  what 
the  World  does  is  so  stupendous  that  it  may 
well  be  excused  for  feeling  sure  that  its  way  of 
life  is  better  and  nobler  than  that  of  the  recluse. 
In  its  more  emotional  moments  the  World  as¬ 
serts  that  it  is  performing  the  part  ascribed  by 

[  7  ] 


fito  Vlita  Ofyonaetica 

Neoplatonic  philosophy  to  emanations  from 
divinity,  that  it  is  weaving  der  Gottheit  lebendiges 
Kleidy  and  it  holds,  as  a  corollary  to  this  belief, 
that  the  recluse  is  a  shirk,  a  slacker,  a  deserter 
from  the  efforts  and  hardships  of  the  actual,  prac¬ 
tical  living  of  life. 

One  must  keep  in  mind  an  obvious  criticism 
upon  the  World’s  position.  It  is  this:  The 
World’s  opinion  springs  directly  from  its  activi¬ 
ties.  The  World  acts  upon  impulses,  appetites, 
instincts,  and  the  customs  that  they  have  set  up. 
It  has  been  moulded  on  the  wheel  of  the  master 
potter,  Desire.  It  glorifies  life,  not  through  any 
process  of  reasoning,  but  from  the  mere  exhila¬ 
ration  of  the  rush  of  tumultuous  existence.  Each 
man  believes  himself  a  rational  being;  but  in  the 
clutch  of  desire  the  human  reason  is  no  more 
than  a  puppet.  The  will-to-live  cracks  its  whip, 
and  the  World  dances.  Under  the  intoxicating 
influence  of  the  god  of  life,  men  hurrah  and 
shout  that  his  gift  is  good,  and  praise  its  protean 
manifestations;  they  sing  soft  or  loud,  bass  or 
treble,  according  as  the  breath  of  life  blows 
through  the  human  pipes.  There  are,  no  doubt, 
individuals,  here  and  there,  who  strive  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  independence  of  reason  and  attempt 
to  control  conduct ;  but  cowboys  afoot  might  as 

[  8  ] 


(&f}e  Wottb  anb  ttfe  Kecfuee 

well  try  to  stop  a  stampede  of  maddened  steers 
as  the  reasoning  few  to  guide  the  course  of  the 
multitude. 

And  this  will-to-live  has  taken  a  social  form. 
Psychologists  tell  us  that  speech,  morality, 
knowledge,  the  very  consciousness  of  self,  exist 
because  the  power  that  expresses  itself  in  life 
has  fashioned  creatures  of  the  human  species  for 
mutual  dependence.  It  is  inevitable  that  the  mass 
of  men  who  constitute  the  World  should  hold 
a  social  creed  and  believe  in  a  communal,  cheek- 
by-jowl,  organization  of  society,  in  which  every 
man  at  roll-call  shall  answer  adsutn  and  take  his 
place  in  the  social  fabric.  For,  the  faster  life 
moves,  the  more  potent  human  energy  becomes, 
the  greater  the  power  it  acquires  through  science 
and  cooperation,  so  much  the  more  firmly  does 
the  World  believe  in  the  closer  and  closer  union 
of  men.  And  at  the  present  time,  more  than 
ever  before,  the  World  is  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  motives  and  aspirations  that  govern  the  re¬ 
cluse;  more  than  ever  it  is  confident  in  its  own 
views  and  ideals,  more  and  more  impatient  of 
criticism,  more  and  more  disinclined  to  open  its 
mind  to  alien  values  and  alien  modes  of  thought. 
Its  conception  of  virtue  has  become  purely  so¬ 
cial,  and  through  its  professed  ideals  of  service 

[  9  ] 


fito  Vlita  &)onaetica 

and  social  justice  it  colors  its  condemnation  of  the 
recluse  with  righteous  indignation. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  recluse  is  not  free  from  prejudice.  By  leaving 
the  World  he  has  not  merely  condemned  it,  but 
he  has  also  openly  proclaimed  his  condemna¬ 
tion.  In  his  heart  he  looks  upon  the  World  as 
he  would  upon  the  train  of  Bacchanals  that  once 
followed  Dionysus  over  the  Thracian  hills,  men 
and  women  with  hair  flying,  clad  in  fawn  skins, 
crowned  with  ivy,  waving  the  thyrsus,  singing 
wild  melodies,  and  madly  dancing  to  pipe  and 
cymbal,  all  worshiping  their  beautiful  young  god, 
whose  magic  and  mystery  had  set  them  beside 
themselves  with  enthusiasm.  In  the  World’s 
ways  the  recluse  sees  nothing  but  the  will-to-live, 
attended  by  desire,  appetite,  impulse,  emotion, 
leading  its  votaries  in  a  mad  dance  over  a  wild 
road  from  birth  to  death. 

This  is  an  extravagant  and  unjust  view  of  the 
World,  and  shows  how  hard  it  is  to  judge  justly 
where  there  is  an  emotional  opposition  between 
opinions.  Yet  all  contraries  may  be  reconciled  if 
we  will  but  devise  a  synthesis  large  enough  to 
include  them ;  and  my  purpose  is  to  justify  the 
recluse  by  the  contention  that  a  reconciliation 
between  the  World’s  values  and  his  may  be  found 

[ 10  ] 


Wottb  anb  tfje  fcecCuee 

by  uniting  them  together  in  a  larger  conception 
of  human  interests.  My  belief  is  that  the  recluse 
serves  humanity,  and  thereby  serves  the  World, 
quite  as  much  as  the  World  serves  the  recluse. 
And  I  shall  hope  to  justify  that  belief  by  indicat¬ 
ing  the  path  which  leads  the  recluse  to  his  soli¬ 
tude,  and  by  an  exposition  of  his  sequestered 
and  cloistered  occupations ;  for  at  each  stage,  as 
I  think,  he  does  not  withdraw  further,  but  rather 
comes  closer  and  closer  to  the  dearest  interests  of 
humanity. 

The  recluse  of  whom  I  speak  and  whose  cause 
I  support  is,  I  admit,  somewhat  of  a  fanatic; 
but  there  is  little  danger  lest  there  be  many  such, 
and  fanaticism  is  often  necessary  in  order  to  clear 
the  way  for  those  of  less  resolute  purpose  who 
would  be  glad  to  avail  themselves  in  modera¬ 
tion  of  what  the  fanatics  insist  upon  to  excess.  It 
may  be  that  only  the  violence  of  fanaticism  can 
restore  the  contemplative  virtues  to  the  esteem 
in  which  they  were  held  of  old,  bring  back  medi¬ 
tation  to  its  place  in  the  ritual  of  Christianity, 
enfranchise  the  moderate  recluse,  and  enable  him 
to  withdraw  from  the  World  for  a  fortnight  a 
year,  for  a  day  in  the  month,  or  an  hour  in  the 
day. 


[ "  i 


33 

©ieiffuetou 

£  vidi  quceto  globo 

Xal,  cl?’  io  sorrtot  del  quo  vil  ecmblatite. 

•paradioo,  jejm,  13-i,  135 

HE  first  stage  on  this  road  to 
spiritual  freedom  is  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  a  great  change.  The  seeker 
awakes  to  find  all  his  values  shriv¬ 
eled  and  shrunken.  He  is  like 
the  sojourner  in  a  foreign  land  who  returns  after 
long  years  to  his  native  village  to  find  the  houses 
all  standing  as  they  were,  ranged  each  in  its 
curtilage  along  the  village  street,  the  elms  and 
maples  rooted  to  their  ancient  places  and  glori¬ 
ous  as  of  old  in  ten  thousand  shimmering  leaves, 
the  gardens  blooming  in  many  colors,  and  all 
the  outward  lineaments  of  the  beloved  place 
seemingly  as  they  used  to  be;  but  the  soul  of 
house  and  garden,  the  spirit  that  gave  them  life, 
the  boys  and  girls,  the  loving  friends,  the  hospit¬ 
able  hosts,  the  welcome,  and  the  cheer — where 
are  they?  Like  this  sojourner  who  walks  sadly 
up  and  down,  bewildered  to  find  the  husks  all 
permanent  yet  empty  of  fruit,  so  the  man  that 
has  awakened  to  find  the  values  of  life  all  topsy- 

[ 12  ] 


©teiffiteion 

turvy,  walks  to  and  fro  in  bewildered  contem- 

Those  values  had  seemed  so  solid.  Wrought 
and  fashioned  out  of  daily  experience,  they  had 
been  grouped  and  classified,  very  much  as  the 
data  of  sense  are  dealt  with;  and  just  as  the  data 
of  sense  are  compounded  into  the  system  of 
science,  so  those  values,  also,  had  been  built  up 
into  a  system  of  ethics.  And  yet  the  old  values 
are  now  become  as  insipid  as  the  white  of  an  egg. 
The  cause  or  occasion  of  this  change  may  have 
been  bereavement,  disappointment,  sickness,  old 
age,  or  philosophy,  but  whatever  it  may  have 
been,  its  effect  has  been  to  convert  the  treasure- 
house  of  the  World  into  a  closet  of  vanities. 
H  ere  starts  the  beginning  of  the  new  road,  pass¬ 
ing  through  the  portal  of  disillusion. 

The  World’s  prizes  —  fame,  good  report,  dis¬ 
tinction,  titles,  offices,  honors — which  up  to  now 
looked  so  fair  and  shining,  things  which  the 
seeker  had  been  taught  to  treat  with  deference 
and  speak  of  with  praise  —  what  has  happened? 
How  are  the  lights  that  lighted  them  grown  dim! 
Where  is  the  sparkle  and  the  gold?  The  bewil¬ 
dered  seeker  rubs  his  eyes.  Has  he,  unbeknown 
to  himself,  been  initiated  into  some  great  mys¬ 
tery,  whereby  desire  and  admiration  have  dropped 

[  13  ] 


fivo  Ditto  Cf^ouaefica 

away,  leaving  him  so  indifferent  that  if  he  could 
put  out  his  hand  and  take  all  these  honors,  he 
would  not  lift  a  finger?  Perhaps  in  the  depths 
of  his  subconsciousness,  where  the  Puck-like 
spirit  of  self-love  is  said  to  play  its  most  impish 
tricks,  jealousy,  the  impulse  to  decry  what  one 
cannot  get, — les  raisins  sont  verts  et  bons  pour  des 
goujats , —  has  been  able  to  deceive  him,  but  with 
his  waking  consciousness  he  is  all  unaware  of 
deception.  To  read  one’s  name  on  the  front  page 
of  the  morning  paper,  to  be  on  the  lips  of  thou¬ 
sands,  to  be  applauded  by  countless  hands,  —  are 
these  the  guerdons  that  satisfy  ambitious  men  ? 
And  the  multitude  that  read,  cheer,  clap,  what 
are  they?  What  is  their  approval  worth?  And 
where  and  w7ho  are  the  notable  men  praised  and 
cheered  yesterday,  and  yesterday’s  yesterday  ? 

And  as  with  ambitions,  so  with  possessions.  A 
fog  falls  thick  and  dark  about  them.  They  loom 
up  like  icebergs  at  night  before  the  watch  on  the 
deck  of  a  fishing  smack ;  what  profit  have  they  ? 
A  palace  in  New  York,  a  gallery  adorned  with 
famous  paintings,  drawing-rooms  furnished  forth 
by  Adam,  Sheraton,  Riesener,  and  Gouthiere, 
stables,  a  yacht,  a  box  at  the  opera,  a  troop  of 
servants,  and  all  the  luxuries  that  wealth  can 
buy?  Certainly  the  seeker  is  not  aware  of  envy, 

[  H  ] 


Oieiffueion 


nor  of  any  sentiment  except  of  freedom  and 
thankfulness.  So  with  all  the  inventory  that  the 
Prince  of  this  World  might  unroll.  The  seeker 
realizes  that  all  his  relations  with  things  of  this 
sort  are  changed.  He  need  not  stuff  his  ears  with 
wax  or  lash  himself  to  the  mast;  the  song  of  these 
sirens  is  out  of  tune  and  harsh. 

Like  a  pilgrim  of  old  bound  for  the  Holy 
Land,  he  takes  his  staff  and  goes,  but  not  in 
anger  or  in  contempt,  rather  in  bewilderment  and 
in  discontent  with  himself,  oppressed  by  a  shal¬ 
low  breathing  and  a  sultry  air. 


[  *5  ] 


rn 

Vloice  of 

Teicvta,  (pv\d^are  eavrotis  &t b  t&v  d8iv\up. 

3  £pt0tle  of  0t.  0ol?n,  v:21 

HE  portal  that  leads  out  of  the 
World  is  disillusion.  Having 
passed  through,  the  pilgrim  is  an 
exile  and  must  seek  a  new  home. 
What  shall  he  do?  Where  shall 
he  go?  In  the  forefront  of  all  maxims  that  look 
to  conduct  stands  the  Delphic  command,  “Know 
thyself”;  but  how  shall  the  pilgrim  know  him¬ 
self?  for  the  ordinary  terms  of  self-explanation 
fail  him.  He  has  no  part  in  the  hopes,  likings, 
and  customs  of  other  men  and  cannot  measure 
himself  by  them.  He  is  aware  of  unlikenesses, 
but  not  of  likeness.  Knowledge  of  self  can  be  but 
ill-expressed  in  negatives.  What  is  there  about 
himself  that  cuts  him  off,  in  what  seems  to  him 
most  essential,  from  his  fellows  ?  He  is  one  of  the 
multitudinous  human  units  that  have  been  fash¬ 
ioned  by  the  patient  processes  of  nature,  by  the 
push  of  vital  energy,  by  the  caprices  of  selection, 
by  the  unnumbered  influences  that  act  upon  or¬ 
ganic  matter.  Men  have  been  shaped  by  mutual 
action  and  reaction,  and  finally  compounded  into 

[  16  ] 


Uloice  of  Jfut^ority 

our  social  fabric.  These  processes  have  not  only 
made  the  World  what  it  is,  but  also  each  man 
what  he  is;  they  have  determined  his  thought, 
language,  ethics,  knowledge,  personality.  Why, 
then,  is  the  pilgrim  so  different  from  his  fellows  ? 
Is  he,  as  the  World  judges,  deficient  in  social 
capacity  ?  Is  it  an  inability  to  hold  his  own  in  the 
struggle  for  life  that  the  spirit  of  self-love  has 
disguised  under  a  cloak  of  mystery?  Is  it  sub¬ 
conscious  repulsion  from  noise,  coarseness,  and 
vanity?  Or  is  there  some  law  of  variability  that 
creates  in  the  World  creatures  that  are  not  really 
of  it?  Or  has  some  foreign  element  been  at  work 
undermining  the  labor  of  its  fellow  elements  ? 
And,  if  so,  what  is  its  nature  ?  Can  it  be  that  a 
power  from  a  spiritual  sphere,  some  Saifift)r,some 
invisible  messenger,  takes  a  few  by  the  hand  and 
bids  them  arise  and  forsake  the  World?  The  psy¬ 
chological  causes,  no  doubt,  are  clear  to  the  psy¬ 
chologist,  but  to  the  pilgrim  self-analysis  yields 
little.  And  so  he  turns  to  see  what  other  men,  in 
like  situation  with  himself,  have  done  in  the  past. 

The  sense  of  disillusion,  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  World,  is  no  new  thing.  It  is  old,  very 
old,  and  therefore  he  to  whom  it  comes  is  able 
to  question  the  experience  of  others  at  different 
places  along  the  road  of  human  history,  in  the 

[  *7  3 


Dlita  Qftonaztica 

hope  that  what  others  have  found  restorative 
may  be  of  help  also  to  him.  A  glance  at  the  pages 
of  the  past  shows  that  many,  many  persons,  in 
their  disillusion  and  discontent,  have  withdrawn 
themselves  apart  from  the  ordinary  ways  of  men, 
and  that  they  did  so  under  a  deep  sense  of  an¬ 
tagonism  between  the  standards  and  values  of  the 
World  and  certain  ideal  standards  and  values 
which,  as  they  thought,  if  believed  in,  would 
make  life  intelligible. 

This  antagonism  these  precursors  have  de¬ 
fined  in  various  ways,  as  between  the  World  and 
the  Spirit;  between  the  life  of  the  senses  and  that 
of  the  soul;  between  illusion  and  truth.  It  is  not 
of  much  consequence  how  the  two  terms  are 
defined,  whether  the  World  means  the  world  of 
ordinary  human  life  or  the  domination  of  the 
baser  appetites  and  ambitions;  whether  the  soul 
is  a  reality,  an  abstraction,  or  a  symbol;  or  what 
illusion,  and  what  truth,  may  be;  the  matter  of 
importance  is  the  profound  antagonism  between 
the  old  values  and  the  new.  It  is  upon  this  an¬ 
tagonism  that  the  greatest  religious  teachers  have 
built  their  doctrines. 

In  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  the  World  is  set  in 
opposition  to  the  Spirit  of  Truth:  “I  will  pray 
the  Father,  and  he  shall  give  you  another  Com- 

[  18  ] 


ff£(je  Vloicc  of  fluttjovity 

forter,  that  he  may  abide  with  you  for  ever;  even 
the  Spirit  of  truth ;  whom  the  world  cannot  re¬ 
ceive,  because  it  seeth  him  not,  neither  knoweth 
him.  ...  If  ye  were  of  the  world,  the  world 
would  love  his  own:  but  because  ye  are  not  of 
the  world,  but  I  have  chosen  you  out  of  the 
world,  therefore  the  world  hateth  you. .  .  .  When 
the  Comforter  is  come  ...  he  will  reprove  the 
world  of  sin  .  .  .  because  they  believe  not  on 
me.  ...  Be  of  good  cheer;  I  have  overcome  the 
world.  .  .  .  O  righteous  Father,  the  world  hath 
not  known  thee:  but  I  have  known  thee.  .  .  .” 

These  are  the  words  of  religious  mysticism; 
they  belong,  many  people  would  think,  to  an¬ 
other  time  and  another  race,  and  perhaps  they 
convey  little  meaning  to  rationalistic  minds;  but 
at  least  they  proclaim,  with  the  emotional  power 
of  poetic  imagination,  the  existence  of  something 
which  men,  in  default  of  a  more  definite  term, 
call  holy,  something  which  stands  in  sharp  op¬ 
position  to  the  ordinary  ways  of  men.  Philo  the 
Jew  says:  “It  is  just  as  impossible  that  the  love 
of  the  World  can  coexist  with  the  love  of  God, 
as  for  light  and  darkness  to  coexist  at  the  same 
time  with  one  another.” 

Subsequently,  bigoted  men  set  against  each 
other  soul  and  body,  in  order  to  express  as  for- 

[  J9  ] 


fito  Vlita  OftonaGtita 

cibly  as  possible  this  contrast  of  values.  This 
opposition  is  misleading  and  unfortunate,  and 
proves  the  drying  up  of  spiritual  imagination. 
It  was  adopted  because  it  served  the  immediate 
purpose  of  convenience  in  proselytizing,  of  de¬ 
manding  from  neophytes  mere  effortless  com¬ 
prehension,  and,  once  adopted,  it  swept  aside  all 
metaphysical  delicacy  of  interpretation.  Soul  and 
body,  instead  of  taking  their  places  as  supple¬ 
mentary  and  cooperative  collaborators  with  dif¬ 
ferent  tasks,  were  set  in  antagonism  to  one  an¬ 
other  as  opposites  and  enemies.  But  this  error 
should  not  prejudice  us  against  the  plain  distinc¬ 
tion  between  the  two  theories  of  value. 

A  more  just  and  sensible  interpretation  of  the 
relation  was  adopted  by  the  Greeks,  who  empha¬ 
sized  the  difference  between  the  material  things 
with  which  the  bodily  senses  are  primarily  busy 
and  those  spiritual  things  with  which  the  sensi¬ 
bilities  of  the  soul  were  believed  to  concern 
themselves.  Socrates  busied  himself  with  this 
difference  on  the  day  of  his  death.  He  was  sit¬ 
ting  on  his  couch  in  the  prison;  at  times  he 
rubbed  his  leg  that  had  been  chafed  by  the  fet¬ 
ters,  and  at  times  he  stroked  the  head  of  his 
well-beloved  disciple,  Phsedo,  and  in  his  talk 
he  said:  “  Shall  we  assume  that  there  are  two 

[  2°  ] 


fefje  Uloice  of  JTutfJoritp 

kinds  of  things,  one  that  can  be  seen,  and  the 
other  without  material  form,  and  that  that  which 
has  no  material  form  is  always  the  same  and  that 
which  can  be  seen  always  changing;  and  that  we 
are  made  up  of  body  and  soul  and  the  body 
resembles  rather  that  which  is  visible,  while  the 
soul  resembles  rather  that  which  has  no  mate¬ 
rial  form  ?  Well,  then,  we  have  been  saying  for  a 
long  time  that  when  the  soul  makes  use  of  the 
body  to  investigate  anything,  by  means  of  sight 
or  hearing  or  any  other  of  the  senses,  —  for  to 
investigate  by  means  of  the  senses  signifies  by 
means  of  the  body,  —  then  she  is  dragged  by  the 
body  into  the  region  of  things  that  are  never 
stable,  and  wanders  about  and  gets  confused  and 
dizzy,  as  if  she  were  drunk,  because  she  asso¬ 
ciates  with  these  unstable  things.  But  when  the 
soul,  of  herself,  alone,  ponders  and  reflects,  then 
she  passes  into  a  region  of  purity,  eternity,  im¬ 
mortality,  and  unchangeableness,  and,  since  she 
too  is  of  such  nature  that  she  is  at  home  there, 
she  abides  there  (when  she  is  alone  by  herself 
and  not  hindered)  and  she  rests  from  her  wan¬ 
dering,  and  with  that  which  never  changes  she 
remains  unchanging,  because  she  has  laid  hold 
of  the  eternal  things.  And  this  condition  of  the 
soul  is  called  wisdom.” 

[  ] 


fito  VI ita  Qtyonaetica 

Socrates,  as  well  as  St.  John  and  Philo,  lived  in 
a  far-off  time,  unfurnished  with  the  speculations 
and  classified  experience  which  have  wrought  so 
great  a  change  in  our  attitude  toward  the  meta¬ 
physical  world.  The  data  and  assumptions  on 
which  they  base  their  philosophies  have  little  in 
common  with  the  data  and  assumptions  on  which 
we  base  ours.  But  the  difference  between  that 
part  of  man  which  concerns  itself  with  physical 
appetites  and  that  other  part  which  loves  to  dwell 
among  those  high  abstractions,  which  some  men 
in  their  passionate  yearning  call  spiritual  realities, 
remains  as  broad  and  deep  as  ever. 

The  like  antithesis,  only  still  more  funda¬ 
mental,  appears  in  Buddha’s  teaching.  He  left 
home,  wife,  luxury,  the  prospect  of  authority  and 
power,  all  the  things  that  the  World  sets  store 
by,  in  order  to  discover  a  standard  of  values  that 
should  be  the  very  opposite  of  that  which  he  had 
been  taught.  And  an  integral  part  of  the  story  of 
Christ,  of  Buddha,  of  Socrates,  is  the  paradox, 
that  the  veneration  and  worship  accorded  to  them 
by  a  great  part  of  mankind  was  given  for  the 
very  reason  that  they  forsook  and  denounced, 
both  in  their  lives  and  their  teachings,  the  stand¬ 
ards  of  ordinary  mankind,  and  set  up  other 
standards  of  a  wholly  contradictory  character. 

[  «  ] 


Cfje  Ulafue  of  ^Dccccbent 

U)uudo  crant  alieni,  ocd  2Dco  projcimi  ac  famtliarca  amici. 

Xljomaa  a  Rcmpia 

HE  seeker,  convert,  or  novice  as 
we  may  call  him,  even  if  he  be  not 
ready  to  proffer  submission,  can¬ 
not  but  entertain  respect  for  voices 
which,  in  spite  of  the  innovations 
of  time,  in  spite  of  science  and  a  multitude  of 
philosophers,  are  still  the  most  authoritative  in 
history;  for  the  voice  of  greatest  authority  is  that 
which  speaks  most  directly  to  the  ear  of  our  deep¬ 
est  emotional  need.  In  the  realm  of  speculation 
upon  the  things  of  sense,  hypothesis  has  suc¬ 
ceeded  hypothesis,  and  stability  is  at  best  a  recent 
acquisition;  but  in  the  realm  of  values  that  de¬ 
termine  the  worth  of  life,  there  has  been  for  all 
generations  of  men  with  like  needs  as  ourselves 
a  sensitive  needle  that  has  steadily  pointed  in  a 
direction  away  from  the  World.  The  credulous 
believe  that  it  points  to  the  very  central  light 
of  the  universe  —  Deus  illuminatio  mea  —  but  the 
novice  need  do  no  more  than  to  accept  its  di¬ 
rection.  Some  hypothesis  he  must  adopt  or  he 
will  but  go  at  random.  As  one  of  the  speakers  in 

[  23  ] 


fito  Vlita  Qfyonaetica 

the  PJuedo  says :  c<  I  think  it  is  either  impossible 
or  very  difficult  to  know  about  these  things  in 
this  life;  and  yet  not  to  investigate  them  in  every 
way,  to  desist  from  inquiry  before  I  am  tired 
out,  would  be  the  mark  of  a  feeble  fellow.  We  are 
obliged  to  do  one  of  two  things,  either  to  find 
out  what  is  the  truth  about  these  matters,  or,  if 
that  is  impossible,  we  must  take  the  best  rational 
theory,  the  hardest  to  refute,  get  aboard  it  as  if 
it  were  a  raft,  and  sail  through  the  dangers  of 
life  —  unless  we  should  be  able  to  make  our  voy¬ 
age  in  greater  safety  upon  a  stauncher  vessel, 
I  mean  by  means  of  some  divine  revelation.” 

These  authoritative  voices,  then,  bid  the 
seeker  turn  his  back  upon  the  World.  That  is 
strong  doctrine ;  for  in  its  fullness  it  would  mean 
to  withdraw  from  familiar  things,  from  daily 
usages,  from  the  ties  and  entanglements  of  social 
and  business  life,  from  habitual  companionship,  in 
short,  almost,  as  the  Bible  says,  to  be  born  again. 
Certainly  no  novice  would  interpret  the  voice 
of  authority  in  that  comprehensive  fashion.  He 
would,  perhaps,  grasp  at  some  figurative  mean¬ 
ing,  such  as  to  retire  into  his  inner  self.  Marcus 
Aurelius  says:  “Nowhere  can  a  man  go  to  find 
peace  more  abundantly  or  greater  freedom  from 
the  cares  of  the  world,  than  in  his  own  soul.  Re- 

[  ^  ] 


(Htfe  lliafue  of  pteccbcnt 

tire  thither  often  and  refresh  thy  spirit.”  But  the 
novice  will  surely  find  that  mere  retirement  in 
thought  is  not  sufficient  to  give  his  spirit  ease, 
so  long  as  his  eyes  behold  vanity  all  about  and 
his  ears  are  exposed  to  the  perpetual  clamour  of 
people  praising  the  things  of  the  World. 

Nevertheless,  circumstances  alter  cases,  and 
whereas  in  the  fourth  century  the  novice  might 
have  gone  forth  eagerly  from  Antioch,  let  us  say, 
into  the  deserts  of  Syria,  or  in  a  later  century 
from  Rome  to  Monte  Cassino,  or  later  still  from 
Paris  to  Citeaux,  to-day  he  would  hesitate  long 
to  leave  his  world  of  NewYork,  or  Boston,  with¬ 
out  some  overpowering  inducement.  At  least, 
bare  prudence  would  suggest  that  he  should  first 
examine  and  consider  what  had  happened  to 
men  who  had  fled  from  the  World.  So,  let  us 
suppose,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  antagonism 
between  the  World  and  what  Socrates  regarded 
as  spiritual  wisdom  is  constant,  however  the  con¬ 
ception  of  those  two  terms  may  change  their 
meanings  —  let  us  suppose  the  seeker  to  inter¬ 
est  himself  in  what  happened  to  these  men  of  old 
whom  we  may  call,  according  to  our  bias,  fugi¬ 
tives  from  the  World  or  pioneers  of  the  spiritual 
life. 

Eugenie  de  Guerin  wrote  in  her  diary:  “This 

[  25  ] 


;pro  Ulita  ($ona6ttca 

is  the  day  of  Saint  Pachomius,  the  father  of 
monks.  I  have  just  read  his  life;  it  is  very  beau¬ 
tiful.  These  lives  of  solitaries  have  a  charm  for 
me!  Most  of  all,  those  that  can  be  imitated.  The 
others  one  admires,  like  the  pyramids.  As  a  rule, 
one  always  finds  something  good  in  them  when 
one  reads  wisely,  even  in  their  extreme  exaggera¬ 
tions;  theirs  were  heroic  feats  that  tend  to  make 
us  devout,  and  to  admire  what  is  high.” 

Eugenie  de  Guerin  was  a  recluse,  both  in  spirit 
and  in  life.  H  er  brother,  her  father,  her  books, 
—  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and 
such,  —  her  journal,  her  bird,  her  dog,  the  parish 
church,  the  poor  peasants  round  about,  consti¬ 
tuted  her  world.  And  yet,  to  this  recluse  in  “the 
solitude  of  Cayla”  the  earliest  of  the  Christian 
monks,  who  established  his  primitive  monastery 
in  the  deserts  of  Egypt,  was  a  light  and  a  guide. 
As  the  bee  carries  the  pollen  from  the  flower  on 
the  hilltop  to  the  flower  in  the  valley,  so  there 
is  some  winged  communication  between  those 
who  serve  the  same  ideal,  however  remote  their 
respective  places  and  their  respective  times, 
borne  onward  as  it  were  upon  vibrations  of  some 
spiritual  ether.  It  is  common  to  speak  of  ancho¬ 
rites  and  monks  as  if  they  cut  all  communica¬ 
tions,  broke  all  relations,  between  themselves  and 

[  ^6  ] 


(1£(}e  Viable  of  ptecehent 

their  fellow  men.  But  a  very  slight  acquaintance 
with  their  lives  shows  that  this  is  not  so;  they 
substituted  new  relations  for  the  old.  From  their 
deserts  and  monastic  walls  they  have  exerted  a 
greater  influence  over  the  lives  of  men  than  if 
they  had  stayed  in  the  places  of  their  birth  and 
followed  the  customs  of  their  townsfolk.  And  it 
is  just  because  they  lived  all  their  lives  in  soli¬ 
tude  or  seclusion  that  they  succeeded  in  teach¬ 
ing  the  Church  in  their  day,  that  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect  does  exist  between  withdrawal 
from  the  world  and  that  habit  of  serenity  which 
is  the  nurse  of  purity,  compassion,  and  justice. 


[  27  ] 


tit 

3aint  JlntQony 

Know  yc  not  tl?at  tlje  fricndoT^ip  of  tlje  world  10  enmtt?  wttlj 
£od?  Wl?o0oevcr  therefore  will  be  a  friend  of  tl?e  world 

i0  tl?c  enenif  of  £od. 

0t.  5ame0,  iv:  4 

AINT  Pachomius  founded  the 
first  Christian  monastery;  but  St. 
Anthony  was  the  first  Christian 
hermit,  and  in  the  popular  mind 
stands  as  the  conspicuous  example 
of  the  type.  Times  change,  and  with  them  the 
customs  and  usages  of  men.  Dogmas,  creeds, 
ideals  pass  away,  but  the  human  heart  remains 
to-day  very  much  as  it  was  in  St.  Anthony’s 
time,  and  it  would  be  as  hazardous  to  say  that 
his  experience  of  life,  his  way  of  bringing  his 
soul  to  peace,  and  his  way  of  benefiting  his  fel¬ 
low  men,  can  be  of  no  present  service,  as  it  would 
be  to  shut  the  pages  of  Plato  on  the  ground  that 
the  world  is  so  changed  that  his  thoughts  can 
no  longer  stimulate  our  imagination  in  its  task 
of  guiding  our  feet  along  our  paths  to-day. 

The  chief  difference  between  St.  Anthony’s 
World  and  ours  lies  in  this,  that  our  World  is 
far  more  comely  and  seductive,  far  more  bediz¬ 
ened  and  tempting,  as  he  would  have  said,  and 

[  28  ] 


§>aint  JIntflonp 

therefore  there  are  far  fewer  who  seek  to  leave 
it.  St.  Anthony  was  like  Christian  in  Pilgrim  s 
Progress  fleeing  the  City  of  Destruction.  He 
turned  his  back  upon  the  World  and  betook 
himself  to  the  solitude  of  the  desert.  Ipse  jam 
omnibus  s^eculi  vinculis  liber  asperum  atque  arduum 
arripuit  institutum  —  free  from  all  the  fetters  of  the 
World  he  laid  stout  hold  of  his  harsh  and  ardu¬ 
ous  purpose.  To  most  people  to-day  St.  Anthony 
was  a  fanatic,  who  gave  himself  over  to  unpleas¬ 
ant,  superstitious,  and  foolish  practices.  Such  a 
judgment  implies  ignorance  and  also  a  sluggish 
imagination.  c<  Forests  are  delightful,”  says  the 
disciple  of  Buddha;  “where  the  World  takes  no 
delight  there  the  passionless  take  delight,  for 
they  seek  not  pleasure.”  And  in  the  solitude  of 
the  desert,  as  in  that  of  the  forest,  there  is  always 
one  denizen,  the  spirit  of  Poetry.  She  takes  her 
pleasure  in  the  silence  of  waste  places,  seeking 
communion  with  quiet,  broken  only  by  the  whis¬ 
pering  wind  or  the  multitudinous  soft  noises 
that  little  creatures  make.  The  desert  is  very 
beautiful;  there  light  decks  the  earth  with  its 
most  enchanting  hues,  and  more  than  elsewhere 
turns  color  into  symbols  of  things  invisible;  and 
there  the  heated  air  hums  a  magical  melody  to 
the  spiritual  ear.  The  children  of  the  World 

[  29  ] 


fito  Vlita  tyonaetica 

turn  poetry  into  prose;  and  more  than  that,  they 
not  only  fail  to  get  the  meaning  of  the  solitary 
life,  but  they  falsify,  or  distort  to  an  extent  that 
is  equivalent  to  falsification.  Of  this  unfairness, 
which  is  due  to  prejudice,  the  life  of  St.  Anthony 
offers  an  example.  The  one  incident  in  the  saint’s 
life  that  the  World  knows  is  what  it  calls  “The 
Temptation  of  St.  Anthony,”  and  from  the  stress 
that  has  been  laid  upon  this  incident  by  painter 
and  novelist,  the  usual  inference  is  that  the  poor 
saint  all  his  life  was  obsessed  by  images  of  cour¬ 
tezans.  This  is  because  the  World  interests  itself 
in  such  matters  and  recks  little  of  the  long  drudg¬ 
ery  by  which  hermits  and  monks  attained  to 
dominion  over  the  impulses  of  the  body.  The 
principal  record  of  St.  Anthony  is  a  biography 
ascribed  to  Athanasius,  the  famous  theologian, 
which  contains  about  sixty  ordinary  pages.  The 
passage  that  relates  the  incident  in  question  is, 
in  the  Latin  version,  “Ille  \diabolus\  per  noctes 
in  pulchr ee  mulieris  vertebatnr  ornatum ,  nulla  omit- 
tens  figmenta  las  civile — at  night  the  Devil  would 
trick  himself  out  like  a  beautiful  woman  and 
forego  no  images  of  immodesty.”  The  telling  of 
this  occupies  one  line  and  a  half,  perhaps  the 
thousandth  part  of  the  biography. 

Anchorites  have  sinned  in  their  indiscriminate 

[  30  ] 


Jmint  JT tittfony 

condemnation  of  people  who  live  in  the  World, 
but  the  World  has  rendered  back  injustice  for 
injustice;  it  has  ignored  the  poetry  and  exag¬ 
gerated  the  fanaticism  in  their  lives.  Uncon¬ 
sciously,  perhaps,  it  is  nettled  by  the  silent  re¬ 
proach  of  every  man  or  woman  who  forsakes  it. 

The  life  that  St.  Anthony  led  in  exchange  for 
life  in  the  World  was  upon  this  fashion.  He  got 
his  livelihood  by  the  work  of  his  hands,  he 
prayed,  he  strove  “to  make  himself  like  one  who 
is  conscious  that  he  walks  in  the  sight  of  God, 
pure  in  heart,  and  ready  to  obey  His  will/’ 
Though  he  wrestled  daily  with  evil,  there  was 
no  harshness  in  him,  nor  lack  of  courtesy,  but 
sobriety  of  judgment  and  an  equable  spirit.  The 
fame  of  these  qualities  brought  to  his  hermitage 
a  multitude  who  sought  help  in  their  various 
needs.  He  consoled  the  sorrowful,  taught  the 
ignorant,  appeased  the  angry,  and  endeavored  to 
persuade  them  all  to  put  nothing  before  the  love 
of  Jesus  Christ.  “Seek  ye  wisdom,  chastity,  jus¬ 
tice,  virtue,  watchfulness,  care  of  the  poor,  robust 
faith  in  Christ,  hospitality,  and  a  mind  that  over¬ 
comes  anger.  If  we  observe  these  things,  we  shall 
prepare  for  ourselves  a  mansion  in  the  land  of 
them  that  attain  peace.”  And  for  further  infor¬ 
mation  of  his  character,  as  it  was  trained  and  dis- 

[  31  ] 


pvo  Ulita  (tyonaetica 

ciplined  by  his  solitary  life,  I  will  quote  from  his 
sermons:  “The  virtue  that  is  within  us  needs  no 
help  from  without;  for  the  native  purity  of  the 
soul,  if  it  be  not  polluted  by  some  external  foul¬ 
ness,  is  the  source  and  origin  of  all  the  virtues. 
It  must  be  good,  because  a  good  Creator  created 
it.  God  has  given  us  our  souls  in  charge;  let  us 
be  faithful  to  the  trust  we  have  accepted.  Do  not, 
I  beg  you,  be  frightened  away  by  the  word  virtue , 
as  if  it  were  impossible  of  achievement,  nor  think 
the  pursuit  of  it  a  sort  of  far  pilgrimage;  because, 
under  God’s  grace,  it  depends  on  our  own  will. 
Let  the  Greeks  [the  unreligious]  cross  the  seas 
to  other  lands,  that  they  may  pursue  their  studies ; 
we  need  not  travel,  whether  by  land  or  water; 

■P*WWi — •  -- -  -  -  .. —  -  -  ® 

for  in  this  and  in  every  corner  of  the  earth  rests 

— 3’”-— -  -■  ■  -I — — I  I iiiimij,,,  i  n  — M 

a  foundation  on  which  to  build  up  the  kingdom 
of  heaven. 

“Let  Christians  and  monks  have  a  care  lest 
their  weakness  give  opportunity  to  the  demons 
of  temptation.  For  according  as  these  demons 
find  us  and  our  thoughts,  so  are  they  wont  to 
make  their  way  into  our  hearts.  And  if  they  find 
there  the  seeds  of  fear  and  of  an  evil  mind,  like 
robbers  who  take  possession  of  undefended 
places,  they  pile  fear  on  fear  and  torture  the 
wretched  soul.  To  conquer  the  enemy  there  is 

[  32  ] 


Jrnint 

one  sufficient  way,  Letitia  spiritualis — by  the  joy 
of  the  spirit;  and  the  thoughts  within  a  soul  that 
is  set  upon  God  will  drive  them  out,  as  we  drive 
out  smoke.  It  is  written,  let  not  the  sun  go  down 
upon  thy  wrath;  so  let  it  be  with  every  fault,  let 
not  the  sun  by  day,  nor  the  moon  by  night,  go 
down  witnessing  it.” 

The  drift  of  this  reference  to  St.  Anthony  is 
to  show  that  from  the  very  beginning  of  monas- 
ticism,  complete  separation  from  the  world  of 
ordinary  life  does  help  a  man  to  keep  himself 
from  grossness  and  wrongdoing,  and  that,  even 
if  he  stay  in  his  solitude,  others  will  derive  aid, 
if  it  be  merely  from  the  inspiration  of  his  victory, 
whether  they  resort  to  him  in  the  flesh  or  in  the 
spirit. 

Athanasius  goes  on  to  say :  “  Who  was  there  in 
Anthony’s  company  that  did  not  transmute  sor¬ 
row  into  joy,  anger  into  peace?  What  blind  man, 
but  felt  the  burden  of  blindness  lightened?  Who 
that  had  been  dejected  by  poverty,  did  not  im¬ 
mediately  cast  his  dejection  aside,  despise  riches 
and  even  rejoice  in  penury?  What  weary  monk 
but  was  refreshed  by  his  exhortations  ?  What 
youth,  assailed  by  the  temptations  of  the  flesh, 
did  not  after  his  counseling  become  a  lover  of 
chastity?  Who  that  had  been  perturbed  by  evil 

[  33  ] 


pto  Vlita  flftonaetica 

thoughts,  but  left  him,  the  storm  within  calmed 
down  and  soul  serene  ?  For  he  comprehended  the 
griefs  that  beset  each  man,  and  by  his  own  meri¬ 
torious  life  had  learned  spiritual  wisdom,  and  so 
knew  how  to  minister  to  their  several  ills  as  if 
they  had  been  bodily  wounds.” 

Anthony  (or  at  least  Athanasius,  or  whoever 
else  has  recounted  the  stories  of  his  struggle  with 
sinful  thoughts)  conceived  of  temptations  in  the 
most  objective  and  concrete  form.  He  or  they 
could  not  believe  that  a  force  so  bent  on  evil,  so 
persistent,  so  protean,  so  subtle,  could  be  other 
than  rational  and  living;  and  so,  as  the  stories 
passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  credulous 
people  ignorant  of  physical  laws,  the  idea  of  a 
horrible,  personal  Devil  was  created.  Butpossibly 
their  exaggerations,  primitive  and  gross  as  they 
seem  to  us,  are  no  worse,  if  we  are  to  judge  them 
by  their  effect  upon  the  lives  of  other  men,  than 
the  opposite  habit  of  the  World,  which  depre¬ 
cates,  excuses,  diminishes,  softening  here,  rubbing 
out  there,  smoothing,  and  tricking  out  with  par¬ 
aphrase,  gloss,  apology,  and  special  pleading, 
until  at  last  sin  disappears  like  a  puff  of  smoke, 
dissolved  in  the  unwholesome  air  of  polite  com¬ 
plaisance.  Of  the  two  extremes,  one  is  unlettered 
and  superstitious,  the  other  flabby  and  brutal, 

[  34  ] 


§>aint  JTnt^onp 

for  it  is  only  the  brutes  that  are  indifferent  as  to 
whether  there  is  a  right  and  a  wrong. 

I  cite  one  more  trait  of  this  fugitive  from  the 
World:  “His  countenance  had  a  great  and  ex¬ 
traordinary  beauty  in  it.  If  any  strangers  wished 
for  a  sight  of  him,  and  found  him  in  company 
with  other  monks,  though  they  had  never  seen 
him  they  would  pass  by  the  rest  and  run  to  An¬ 
thony,  as  though  drawn  by  his  appearance.  Not 
that  he  was  taller  or  larger  than  others,  but  there 
was  a  peculiar  composure  of  manner  and  purity 
of  soul  in  him.  For,  being  unruffled  in  spirit,  all 
his  outward  expressions  of  feeling  were  also  free 
from  perturbation;  so  that  the  joy  of  his  soul 
made  his  very  face  cheerful,  and  from  the  gestures 
of  his  body  men  understood  the  composure  of 
his  soul.” 

A  fair  inference  from  the  biography  of  this 
early  anchorite  is  that  self-dependence  in  mate¬ 
rial  things,  and  in  religious  things  dependence 
upon  what  he  called  God,  together  with  medita¬ 
tion,  and  prayer,  and  a  tyrannical  dominion  over 
the  fleshly  appetites,  do  teach  spiritual  wisdom. 
And  there  can  be  no  greater  skepticism,  no  more 
certain  indication  of  the  working  of  the  spirit  that 
denies,  than  to  suppose  that  spiritual  wisdom  in 
any  man,  however  remote  his  life,  or  inaccessible 

[  35  ]  '  * 


fito  Wta  <X)onaGt\ca 

his  habitation,  can  be  unfruitful  for  other  men. 
And  if  devotion  to  such  practices  all  one’s  life 
brings  so  many  notable  excellencies,  may  we  not 
infer  that  partial  devotion  will  confer  some  spirit¬ 
ual  benefit  upon  the  seeker? 


[  36  ] 


m3 

^ainf  TSencbict 

■Requiem  eternam  dona  eie,  JDomine ,  et  lup  perpctua  Inceat  eta. 

HE  World’s  theory  that  ancho¬ 
rites  do  nothing  for  their  fellow 
men  is  contradicted  by  the  life  of 
St.  Anthony,  and  the  similar  re¬ 
proach  it  casts  upon  monks  is 
still  more  flatly  contradicted  by  the  achievement 
of  St.  Benedict.  As  Anthony  is  an  archetype  and 
represents  the  anchorite’s  real  relation  to  human¬ 
ity,  so  St.  Benedict  is  also  an  archetype,  and  the 
growth  and  long  prosperity  of  what  he  called  Do- 
minici  schola  servitii ,  his  School for  the  service  of  God, 
are  proof  of  his  usefulness  to  his  fellows.  And 
since  human  nature  remains  a  constant  factor 
throughout  all  the  revolutions  and  mutations 
that  have  come  over  our  western  world  from 
Benedict’s  day  to  our  own,  it  is,  as  I  have  said, 
no  more  than  prudent  for  the  neophyte,  unless 
he  rejects  wholly  the  notion  that  the  past  can 
help  the  present,  to  examine  a  little  into  this 
famous  system. 

The  Benedictine  rule  is  addressed  to  those 
who  yearn  to  enter  into  eternal  life :  Quihus  ad 
vitam  aternam  amor  incumhit.  And  eternal  life 

[  37  ] 


pto  Vlita  Qftonaetica 

does  not  mean  a  life  hereafter;  nor  does  it  involve 
any  reference  to  time,  for  time  is  but  a  condi¬ 
tion  under  which  mortal  life  is  lived,  perhaps  a 
category  or  device  of  the  human  mind,  and  has 
no  part  in  God.  Rather,  eternal  life  means  the  en¬ 
joyment  of  something  that  transcends  all  human 
limitations,  the  consciousness,  if  such  be  possible, 
of  that  which  is  perfect.  In  other  words,  the  object 
of  the  rule  is  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God. 
The  method  consists  primarily  in  the  practice  of 
solitude;  for  solitude  takes  us  away  from  worldly 
temptations,  it  affords  opportunity  for  self-exam¬ 
ination,  meditation,  and  prayer,  it  quickens  the 
desire  for  holiness,  and  brings  us  face  to  face  with 
the  mystery  of  eternal  values.  The  practice  of  sol¬ 
itude  is  therefore  an  indispensable  part  of  spir¬ 
itual  discipline.  But  solitude,  if  unregulated,  in 
spite  of  its  soothing  touch,  comparable  to  that 
of  a  child’s  hand,  is  unable  of  itself  to  give  the 
recluse  the  peace  that  he  most  needs.  Like  un¬ 
chartered  freedom,  solitude  unregulated  becomes 
a  burden.  Senancour,  to  take  a  modern  instance, 
who  fled  from  the  maladjustments  of  the  World, 
did  not  find  in  the  life  of  a  recluse  the  peace  that 
he  had  hoped  for;  solitude  with  him  begot  rest¬ 
lessness  and  restlessness  unhappiness.  A  recluse 
needs  regularity  of  life,  hours  that  bring  their 

[  38  ] 


$aint  TBcncbict 

appointed  changes,  definite  tasks  to  do,  whether 
self-imposed  or  commanded  by  some  outside 
authority,  otherwise  disquiet  will  dog  his  steps. 
This  need  is  met  by  the  provisions  of  the  Bene¬ 
dictine  rule;  they  serve  as  a  trellis  to  support  and 
direct  the  shoots  and  tendrils  of  the  religious  im¬ 
agination,  they  rescue  untrained  wills  from  tedi¬ 
ous  license  and  wayward  Teachings  out  to  right 
and  left,  and  lift  the  spirit  toward  sunlight  and 
the  upper  air. 

But  ordinary  human  nature,  even  of  a  serious 
cast,  needs  some  indulgence  on  its  quest  of  the 
eternal  values.  Men,  except  such  as  are  very 
strenuous  and  tense,  drawn  like  a  bent  bow  to 
the  arrow’s  head,  need  some  intercourse  with 
their  fellows,  especially  with  such  as  are  upon  a 
like  quest  as  themselves;  otherwise  they  find  the 
long  stretch  of  solitude,  day  after  day,  tedious 
and  unfruitful.  Besides,  company  gives  employ¬ 
ment  to  the  native  kindliness  in  man;  and  the 
union  of  many  diminishes  for  each  his  servitude 
to  material  cares,  for  by  assigning  to  each  the 
duties  that  he  can  best  perform ;  to  one  cooking, 
to  another  the  vegetable  garden,  to  a  third  copy¬ 
ing  manuscripts,  to  a  fourth  illuminating  missals, 
and  so  on,  the  necessary  tasks  are  more  speedily 
accomplished.  Human  fellowship,  too, saves  men 

[  39  ] 


fit o  V lita  fyonaetica 

from  whimsies  and  fantastical  notions,  to  which 
solitaries  are  sometimes  liable.  And  one  monk 
may  learn  from  another  some  virtue,  some  dis¬ 
cipline,  some  practice,  some  thought  or  hope, 
some  vision  of  the  divine,  which  of  himself  he 
could  not  have  discovered.  And,  also,  in  the  of¬ 
fices  of  worship,  in  common  supplication  for  fuller 
life  and  deeper  spiritual  satisfactions,  there  is  a 
contagion  that  passes  from  man  to  man,  so  that 
if  one  man’s  heart  is  lifted  up,  his  neighbor’s 
heart  is  stirred  and  lifted  likewise,  as  the  first 
fledgling  that  spreads  its  wings  encourages  its  fel¬ 
lows.  For  these  reasons  Benedict  rejected  com¬ 
plete  solitude  and  gathered  his  monks  together 
for  the  better  attainment  by  all  of  their  common 
end. 

The  several  articles  of  the  rule  I  need  not  re¬ 
count.  They  prescribe  obedience,  work,  prayer, 
and  a  strict  observance  of  the  summa  quies ,  the 
perfect  peacefulness,  to  which  fugitives  from  the 
World  aspire.  They  are  addressed  to  those  who 
are  ready  to  renounce  their  own  desires  and  be¬ 
come  soldiers  in  the  service  of  Christ.  A  brief 
enumeration  of  certain  precepts,  which,  in  the 
language  of  the  rule,  are  instrumentalities  of  good 
works,  will  serve  to  indicate  the  spirit  of  the 
whole: — 


[  40  ] 


§>aint  % etiebict 

Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  sou],  and  with  all  thy  mind, 
and  . . .  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself. 

Thou  shalt  be  a  stranger  to  the  World’s  doings. 
Thou  shalt  not  return  evil  for  evil. 

Thou  shalt  not  love  much  talk. 

Thou  shalt  be  often  on  thy  knees  in  prayer. 
Thou  shalt  hate  thine  own  self-will. 

From  this,  in  an  imperfect  way,  one  can  infer 
the  general  nature  of  St.  Benedict’s  monastic  sys¬ 
tem.  It  was  not,  of  course,  intended  to  provide 
its  members  with  a  well-rounded  life,  nor  to 
teach  them  the  ways  of  men  or  a  knowledge  of 
this  physical  universe.  Its  purpose  was  to  found 
schools  for  the  service  of  God.  Such  a  purpose 
stands  over  against  the  purpose  of  life  in  the 
World,  and  the  opposition  is  justly  expounded, 
I  think,  by  Cardinal  Newman.  He  ascribes  to 
St.  Benedict  “for  his  discriminating  badge,  the 
element  of  poetry,”  and  explains  what  he  means 
by  this  as  follows:  “Poetry,  I  conceive,  what¬ 
ever  be  its  metaphysical  essence,  or  however  va¬ 
rious  may  be  its  kinds,  is  always  the  antagonist 
to  science.  As  science  makes  progress  in  any  sub¬ 
ject  matter,  poetry  recedes  from  it.  The  two  can¬ 
not  stand  together;  they  belong  respectively  to 

[  41  ] 


fito  Vlita  Qftonaetica 

two  modes  of  viewing  things,  which  are  contra¬ 
dictory  of  each  other.  Reason  investigates,  ana¬ 
lyzes,  numbers,  weighs,  measures,  ascertains,  lo¬ 
cates  the  objects  of  its  contemplation,  and  thus 
gains  a  scientific  knowledge  of  them.  But  as  to 
the  poetical,  very  different  is  the  frame  of  mind 
which  is  necessary  for  its  perception.  It  demands, 
as  its  primary  condition,  that  we  should  not  put 
ourselves  above  the  objects  in  which  it  resides, 
but  at  their  feet;  that  we  should  feel  them  to  be 
above  and  beyond  us,  that  we  should  look  up  to 
them,  and  that,  instead  of  fancying  that  we  can 
comprehend  them,  we  should  take  for  granted 
that  we  are  surrounded  and  comprehended  by 
them  ourselves.  It  implies  that  we  understand 
them  to  be  vast,  immeasurable,  impenetrable,  in¬ 
scrutable,  mysterious,  so  that  at  best  we  are  only 
forming  conjectures  about  them,  not  conclusions; 
for  the  phenomena  which  they  present  admit  of 
many  explanations,  and  we  cannot  know  the  true 
one.  Poetry  does  not  address  the  reason,  but  the 
imagination  and  the  affections;  it  leads  to  admira¬ 
tion,  enthusiasm,  devotion,  love.  The  vague,  the 
uncertain,  the  irregular,  the  sudden,  are  among 
its  attributes  or  sources. ” 

Following  this  interpretation,  the  observance 
of  Benedict’s  monastic  rule  appears  to  be,  in 

[  42  ] 


Jxxint  IBenebict 

part,  a  sort  of  meditative  poetry,  like  much  of 
Wordsworth,  and,  in  part,  a  passionate  lyrical 
hymn,  such  as  those  Latin  hymns  to  be  found  in 
the  Roman  Breviary,  a  poetry,  however,  not  ex¬ 
pressed  in  verse  and  stanza,  in  metre  or  rhyme, 
but  in  quiet  human  lives.  In  Benedict’s  opinion, 
the  love  of  God  is  the  spirit  of  poetry,  and  to 
do  His  will  is  to  become  a  poet. 


[  43  ] 


vim 

HEQomae  a  jketnpi$ 

O  qul  scintlllam  Ijaberet  verse  cantatte, 
profecto  omnia  tcrrena  acntirct  plena  fore  vamtatte. 
Xl?oma0  a  ‘Rempio 

AINT  Benedict’s  foresight  de¬ 
termined  the  form  and  usages  of 
the  system  that  was  to  serve  as  a 
house  of  refuge  for  fugitives  from 
the  World  during  all  the  Middle 
Ages  and  into  modern  times.  The  system  was 
flexible  and  permitted  different  ideas  or  emotions 
to  become  predominant  at  one  time  or  another,  as 
work,  asceticism,  prayer,  or  contemplation.  The 
reproach  laid  against  it  is  that  corruption  donned 
cowl,  cord,  and  sandals,  and  converted  monas¬ 
teries  into  abodes  of  idleness,  if  not  worse.  To 
which  it  may  be  answered,  that  the  monastic 
system  was  never  intended  for  all  men ;  no  monk, 
however  enthusiastic,  ever  proposed  that  it 
should  apply  to  everybody.  As  to  corruption, 
that  is  a  social  problem,  biological  and  psycho¬ 
logical,  whose  solution  concerns  the  World  quite 
as  much  as  it  concerns  the  monastery.  There  is, 
of  course,  no  magical  remedy  in  a  monastery  to 
cure  men  of  evil  inclinations  against  their  will. 

[  44  ] 


Cffamae  a  Si empte 

The  value  of  the  monastic  system  is  that  it  em¬ 
bodies  ideas  and  practices  which  in  the  past  have 
enabled  serious-minded  men  to  attain  inward 
peace,  and  cultivate  a  knowledge  and  love  of 
God.  At  any  rate,  the  system  endured  in  full 
fruition  down  to  the  Reformation  and  produced 
its  ripest  fruit  shortly  before  the  modern  world 
determined,  for  one  reason  and  another,  to  make 
an  end  of  it.  That  ripest  fruit  is  contained  in 
Thomas  a  Kempis’s  book,  De  Imitatione  Christi. 
Thomas’s  life  was  that  of  the  typical  monk;  it 
contains  no  more  incident  than  befitted  the  nar¬ 
row  monastery  walls  on  Mount  St.  Agnes.  To 
copy  pious  manuscripts,  to  fetch  water  from  the 
well,  to  walk  with  patient  feet  up  and  down  the 
little  garden  path  while  his  thoughts  soared  far 
above,  to  hoe  cabbages,  to  cook  what  food  suf¬ 
ficed  for  his  brethren  and  himself,  to  preach  to 
novices,  to  compile  biographies  of  saintly  bro¬ 
thers  who  had  gone  before — such  was  his  life. 

With  what  sweet  labour  did  your  hands  transcribe 
The  Word  for  those  who  shared  your  convent  walls. 
Brothers  of  Common  Life, 

Nor  age,  nor  strife 

Dimmed  your  swift  vision  of  the  Inner  Word, 

But  with  the  clear-tongued  message  of  a  bird 


[  45  ] 


pro  CJtifa  tityonaetica 

Singing  in  April  from  an  apple  bough 

You  gave  your  gospel  —  as  when  sunlight  falls 

Piercingly  into  Shadow — Surely  now 

In  the  white-feathered  host  of  Heaven  you  sing 

The  Song  that  was  your  earthly  tutoring. 

The  Imitation  of  Christ  is  reckoned  among  the 
classics  of  literature,  and  takes  its  place  beside 
the  selected  few  of  chiefest  note,  whoever  makes 
the  selection.  It  is  the  flower  of  monastic  poetry. 
It  sets  forth  the  monastic  ideal  in  its  passion,  its 
beauty,  and  all  its  imperfections.  The  imperfec¬ 
tions  are  plain  enough;  that  ideal  detaches  life  not 
merely  from  the  World,  but  also  from  all  human 
affections  and  interests;  it  passes  over  the  noblest 
human  emotions,  such  as  delight  in  beauty,  the 
love  of  Dante  for  Beatrice,  the  passion  of  the 
mother  for  her  son,  and  whatever  other  earthly 
feeling  seems  in  the  eyes  of  ordinary  men  to  re¬ 
veal  most  clearly  a  divine  presence. 

Such  an  outlook  upon  human  life,  such  dog¬ 
mas,  are  no  longer  acceptable,  even  to  the  re¬ 
cluse  who  has  forsaken  the  World.  But  the  book 
is  immortal  because  of  its  passion,  its  truth,  and 
its  heroism.  It  is  a  noble  exposition  of  one  mode 
of  spiritual  life.  It  is  based  upon  two  postulates: 
that  the  World  and  its  pleasures  are  vain  things, 
and  that  the  one  way  of  escape  lies  in  imitation 

[  46  ] 


fofjomae  a  Eempie 

of  Christ;  and  it  proceeds  by  a  series  of  coun¬ 
sels,  precepts,  prayers, and  praises,  to  instruct  the 
novice  how  he  may  climb  the  long,  steep  road 
to  freedom.  The  seeker  must  turn  his  back  on 
temptation,  practise  humility,  dwell  upon  reli¬ 
gious  thoughts,  cleanse  his  soul  by  penitence 
and  prayer,  and,  trampling  upon  all  earthly  de¬ 
sires,  steadfastly  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Divine  Leader,  with  a  whole  heart  and  unfalter- 
ingdevotion.  If  we  grant  his  two  postulates,  he 
is  the  wisest  and  most  lovable  of  teachers.  I  quote 
here  and  there  from  his  pages:  — 

Vanity  of  vanity,  all  is  vanity,  except  to  love  God 
and  serve  Him  only. 

If  you  wish  to  stand  erect  and  go  forward  in  duty, 
you  will  deem  yourself  an  exile  and  a  pilgrim  on 
this  earth. 

The  beginning  of  all  evil  temptations  is  incon¬ 
stancy  of  soul  and  little  trust  in  God.  As  a  ship 
without  helm  is  driven  hither  and  thither  by  the 
waves,  so  the  weak  man,  losing  hold  of  his  pur¬ 
pose,  is  tempted  on  every  side. 

He  that  hath  true  love  in  no  wise  seeks  his  own 
good ;  his  only  desire  is  that  the  glory  of  God  be 
shown  forth  in  all  things.  He  envies  no  man,  for 
he  is  indifferent  to  his  own  pleasure;  nor  does  he 

[  47  ] 


fito  Vlita  Qftonaetica 

wish  to  enjoy  himself,  for  above  all  joys  he  hopes 
to  attain  felicity  in  God. 

He  that  purposes  to  commune  with  the  inward 
things  of  the  spirit  must  depart  from  the  mul¬ 
titude,  as  Jesus  did. 

Leave  vain  things  to  the  vain,  and  busy  yourself 
with  the  commandments  of  God. 

Strive  to  be  patient  and  tolerate  the  faults  of 
others  and  their  infirmities,  whatever  they  be; 
for  you  yourself  have  many  which  others  must 
put  up  with.  If  you  cannot  make  yourself  such 
a  one  as  you  wish,  how  can  you  expect  another 
to  conform  to  what  you  approve  of? 

You  know  that  you  are  come  to  be  a  servant,  not 
a  master,  that  you  are  called  to  labor  and  endure, 
not  to  sit  at  ease  and  talk. 

By  two  wings  a  man  is  lifted  up  from  earthly 
things,  by  simplicity  and  purity. 

First  establish  yourself  in  peace,  and  then  you 
shall  be  able  to  set  others  at  peace. 

He  that  shall  best  know  how  to  suffer  will  have 
the  greater  peace,  and  he  that  is  mistrustful  of 
nothing  shall  be  truly  at  peace. 

Oh,  if  you  would  mark  how  much  peace  to  your¬ 
self  and  joy  to  others  you  would  procure  by  doing 

[  48  ] 


flDJomas  &  J kcmpie 

right,  I  think  you  would  be  more  careful  of  your 
spiritual  perfection. 

If  we  were  not  wrapped  up  in  ourselves,  if  in¬ 
stead  we  were  dead  to  ourselves,  then  we  should 
be  able  to  perceive  things  divine,  and  experience 
contemplation  of  heaven;  the  whole  hindrance, 
and  it  is  very  great,  is  this:  that  we  are  not  free 
from  passion  and  desire,  nor  do  we  strive  to  walk 
in  the  perfect  way  of  the  saints. 

A  man  should  so  stablish  himself  in  God,  that 
he  would  not  need  much  human  consolation. 

If  you  seek  Jesus  in  all  things,  you  will  find 
him  everywhere,  but  if  you  seek  yourself,  you 
will  find  yourself. 

When  you  shall  have  come  to  this,  that  trib¬ 
ulation  is  sweet  and  savorous  to  you  for  Christ’s 
sake,  then  believe  that  it  is  well  with  you,  for  you 
have  found  paradise  on  earth. 

No  man  is  fitted  to  understand  heavenly  things, 
unless  he  has  stooped  under  burdens  for  Christ’s 
sake. 


Cardinal  Gasquet  says  that  “the  monastic  life 
adapts  itself  to  the  workings  of  grace  in  each 
individual  soul,  and  gains  its  end  when  it  has 
brought  that  individual  soul  to  the  highest  per- 

[  49  ] 


ftio  tit ita  Qtyonaetica 

fection  of  which  its  natural  and  supernatural 
gifts  render  it  capable.”  This  assertion  is  true  of 
Thomas  a  Kempis.  His  ideal  strikes  a  chill  into 
the  heart  of  the  ordinary  man,  who  finds  his 
pleasures  at  the  family  hearth,  in  the  laughter  of 
children,  the  welcomings  of  friends,  the  obvious 
achievements  of  prosperous  labor,  and  the  appro¬ 
bation  of  the  community;  but  the  monastic  life 
is  not  for  the  ordinary  man.  The  ideal  of  Thomas 
a  Kempis  is  far  different.  He  seeks  by  all  means, 
great  and  small,  to  foster  and  increase  his  love  of 
God;  no  duty  is  too  menial,  no  renunciation  too 
great,  that  enables  his  heart  to  burn  with  deeper 
devotion.  And  if  one  may  venture  to  judge  by 
the  analogy  of  human  affections,  to  love  God, 
if  that  is  possible,  must  be  the  highest  human 
felicity. 


[  50  ] 


um 

3enancour,  (Suge'nie  be  Guerin,  anb  JJmieC 

Sili,  quid  l?oc  vcl  lllud  ad  te?  Xu  £De  scquere. 

Xfyomas  a  Rempi0 

UCH  then,  in  a  general  way,  is  the 
method  by  which  solitaries  of  old 
sought  to  attain  a  higher  life.  T hose 
of  whom  I  have  spoken  consti¬ 
tuted  a  part  of  the  mighty  theo¬ 
logical  and  ecclesiastical  system  which  guided  and 
governed  mediaeval  Europe,  and  for  that  reason 
it  is  popularly  believed  that  both  the  salvation 
they  sought  and  their  way  of  seeking  are  inex¬ 
tricably  bound  up  with  that  system,  and  must 
stand  or  fall  with  it.  In  order  to  avoid  this  ob¬ 
jection  to  my  argument  from  authority,  I  shall 
refer  to  sundry  solitaries  who  were  not,  in  any 
technical  sense  at  least,  members  of  that  system. 
If  it  be  again  urged  as  an  objection,  that  these 
also  were  religious-minded,  I  must  admit  they 
were;  and  if  that  quality  shall  debar  a  solitary 
from  usefulness  to-day,  then  I  must  admit,  as  a 
rule,  solitaries  will  be  useless.  Almost  all  men 
who  forsake  the  World  become  seekers  of  God, 
although  the  God  they  seek  need  not  be  the 
Christian  God.  But  I  deny  that  their  religious- 

[  51  ] 


fit o  Vlita  Qfyonaetica 

mindedness  is  a  bar  to  their  usefulness,  and  I  go 
much  further :  I  will  rest  my  whole  contention  — 
that  solitaries  serve  the  World — upon  this  very 
quality  of  religious-mindedness,  with  the  proviso 
that  they  are  not  bigots  but  pilgrims  in  search 
of  what  to  them  shall  prove  eternal  life.  My  be¬ 
lief  is  that,  as  a  rule,  the  modern  solitary  leaves 
the  World  under  the  constraint  of  some  tedium, 
disgust,  or  sense  of  vanity,  but  that  after  he  has 
left  the  World  he  will  be  swept  along,  whether 
by  loneliness  or  some  spiritual  attraction,  upon 
a  search  for  God;  and  yet  perhaps  it  is  that  a 
desire  for  God  has  aroused  these  several  forms  of 
discontent.  However  that  may  be,  I  come  to  my 
instances  of  hungry-hearted  persons  who  do  not 
belong  to  the  great  monastic  system,  and  yet  have 
sought  salvation  in  solitude.  Senancour  found  the 
World  to  consist  of  “Embarras,  ennuis,  con- 
traintes,  insipidite.”  He  says:  “Pour  moi,  j’ai 
appris  avant  tout,  que  le  parti  le  plus  sage  serait 
encore  de  renoncer  a  la  vie  du  monde,  si  meme 
on  n’avait  rien  de  vraiment  heureux  a  y  substi- 
tuer.  ...  I  no  longer  think  of  putting  my  life 
to  use,  I  only  seek  to  fill  it;  I  no  longer  wish  to 
enjoy  it,  merely  to  put  up  with  it;  I  do  not  exact 
virtue  of  it,  rather  that  it  shall  do  no  wrong  — 
but  even  this,  where  may  I  procure  it  or  even 

[  52  ] 


h hcnancont ,  (SuQenie  be  Guerin,  anb  Jfmief 

hope  for  it?  .  .  .  Let  us  keep  up  our  silent  sanc¬ 
tuaries;  in  them  the  eternal  perspectives  are  pre¬ 
served,  and  such  ideas  as,  at  least  to  some  extent, 
restore  a  man  to  his  moral  composure,  and  serve 
to  rescue  him  from  the  degradation  of  the  World. 
.  .  .  When  the  religious-minded  has  once  beheld 
beatitude  in  his  visions  he  looks  no  more  for 
them  on  earth;  and  if  he  shall  lose  those  ravish¬ 
ing  illusions  he  finds  no  charm  in  things  far  in¬ 
ferior  to  his  dreams. ” 

To  keep  up  our  silent  sanctuaries — that  should 
have  been  Senancour’s  task,  as  it  was  his  duty. 
But  he  achieved  nothing  because  he  wandered 
about  in  search  of  a  monastery  built  by  human 
hands  out  of  bricks  and  clay,  and  did  not  learn 
that  each  man  must  build  a  silent  sanctuary  for 
himself  out  of  spiritual  materials,  and  that  the 
physical  monastery  is  merely  of  value  according 
as  it  shall  serve  that  end. 

Eugenie  de  Guerin,  on  the  contrary,  —  to  come 
to  my  second  instance,  —  took  the  materials  that 
lay  ready  to  her  hands  and  built  her  silent  spir¬ 
itual  sanctuary.  And  that  spiritual  sanctuary 
seems  to  have  converted  her  father’s  house  into 
its  own  essence,  or  at  least  into  a  corporeal  coun¬ 
terpart.  Simplicity  was  there,  religious  devout¬ 
ness,  pious  practices,  and  a  humdrum  round  of 

[  53  ] 


fito  Vlita  Qftonaetica 

daily  duties.  Her  journal  and  letters  contain  little 
more  reference  to  the  outside  world  than  do  the 
records  of  Mount  St.  Agnes  or  of  Sacro  Speco. 
The  early  morning  sun,  the  bird  upon  a  bush 
outside  her  window,  the  chirp  of  grasshoppers, 
a  brood  of  chickens,  a  lame  duckling,  the  dog,  the 
falling  leaves,  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  these  con¬ 
stitute  the  furnishings  of  life.  Her  spirit  is  like 
that  of  Thomas  a  Kempis.  She  says  of  a  friend: 
u  I  have  noticed  Gabrielle  does  not  approve  my 
inclination  to  retirement  and  renouncement  of 
the  World.  She  does  not  know  me;  she  isyounger 
and  does  not  understand  that  a  time  comes  when 
the  heart  lets  go  of  all  that  does  not  help  it  to 
live.  The  World  enchants  and  intoxicates,  but 
that  is  not  life.  Life  can  be  found  only  in  God  and 
in  oneself.  To  be  alone  with  God,  oh,  happiness 
supreme!”  And  in  another  passage:  “I  have  not 
read  the  life  of  the  saint  for  the  day,  I  am  going 
to  read  it;  I  always  do  before  dinner.  I  find  that 
while  one  is  eating,  it  is  good  to  have  in  the  soul 
something  spiritual  like  the  life  of  a  saint.  The 
Life  of  St.  Macedone  is  charming.  He  is  the  saint 
that  said  to  a  hunter,  who  was  amazed  to  meet 
him  in  the  mountains, c  You  run  after  beasts,  but 
I  run  after  God.’  These  words  contain  all  the  life 
of  saints,  and  also  of  men  of  the  World.”  She 

[  54  ] 


§> enancout ,  (Eugenie  be  Guerin,  atifc  Jfmief 

calls  herself  pauvre  anachorete ,  and  with  reason; 
and  writes  to  her  brother, “  What  would  you  do 
with  my  perpetual  calm?  For,  except  for  what 
comes  from  my  heart  or  from  my  head,  there  is 
no  movement  in  my  life.  At  this  moment  I  have 
just  come  back  from  a  little  walk  in  the  sunshine ; 
there  was  nothing  stirring  near  me  except  some 
flies  buzzing  in  the  warm  air.  I  was  alone  in  the 
great  empty  monastery.  This  complete  loneliness 
made  me  live  for  an  hour  as  hermits  have  lived 
for  years,  men  and  women,  souls  withdrawn  apart 
from  the  world.  Without  material  cares,  with  no 
word  but  from  within,  with  no  emotions  but  those 
that  start  within  the  mind,  with  no  life  but  that 
of  the  soul :  there  is  in  this  unattachment  a  free¬ 
dom  full  of  enjoyment,  an  unsuspected  happi¬ 
ness,  and  I  well  understand  how,  in  order  to  make 
it  last,  one  would  go  and  hide  a  hundred  leagues 
in  the  desert.  ...  It  is  because  the  world  does 
not  satisfy  the  soul;  it  entertains  it  but  does  not 
give  it  life.  One  feels  this,  however  young,  when 
once  the  heart  detaches  itself  from  illusions.” 

And  with  her,  as  with  St.  Benedict,  the  spirit 
of  poetry  was  a  familiar  visitant.  <c  I  write,”  she 
says,  “with  fresh  hands,  for  I  have  just  been 
washing  my  gown  in  the  brook.  It  is  pleasant  to 
be  washing,  to  see  the  fish  pass  by,  and  ripples, 

[  55  ] 


fito  Vlita  OfyonaGtica 

blades  of  grass,  leaves,  or  flowers  fallen  in  —  to 
watch  these,  and  I  don’t  know  what  beside,  float 
down  the  stream.  Many  things  come  to  the 
washerwoman  who  has  eyes  to  see  the  brook  as 
it  goes  by.  It  is  the  birds’  bathroom,  the  sky’s 
looking-glass,  the  image  of  life,  a  running  road, 
the  reservoir  that  fills  the  baptismal  font.”  And 
so,  for  good  reasons,  she  was  content.  “Rien  ne 
me  plait  comme  mon  desert.” 

My  third  instance  is  Amiel.  Thomas  a  Kempis 
says:  Pacem  omnes  desiderant;  sed  qux  ad  veram 
pacem  pertinent,  non  omnes  cur  ant.  Pax  mea ,  cum  hu- 
milibus  et  mansuetis  corde.  Pax  tua  erit  in  multa  pa- 
tientia.  These  words  almost  seem  like  the  sum¬ 
ming  up  of  Amiel’s  journal.  His  soul  was  that 
of  a  recluse,  but  circumstances  did  not  permit 
him  to  flee  from  the  World,  and  it  may  be  that 
he  did  not  know  that  solitude  would  be  for  him 
not  merely  a  road,  but  the  only  road,  to  the  peace 
he  sought,  to  freedom  from  the  burden  of  trivial 
things.  He  seems  to  have  understood  himself  no 
further  than  to  have  been  aware  that  he  was  too 
sensitive,  too  imaginative,  too  self-distrustful, 
for  practical  life.  He  yearned  for  what  Words¬ 
worth  describes :  — 


[  56  ] 


£>cnancont ,  0ugenie  be  Guerin,  <w&  JTmief 

What  but  this, 

The  universal  instinct  of  repose, 

The  longing  for  confirmed  tranquillity, 

Inward  and  outward;  humble,  yet  sublime:  — 

The  life  where  hope  and  memory  are  as  one; 
Earth  quiet  and  unchanged  ;  the  human  Soul 
Consistent  in  self-rule;  and  heaven  revealed 
To  meditation  in  that  quietness ! 


Amiel  beats  his  wings  against  the  constraining 
walls  builded  about  him  by  society.  “  Vivre  de  la 
vie  eternelle,  e’est  la  le  but  et  la  felicite  supreme 
pour  le  philosophe,  l’artiste,  le  saint.  Eh  bien, 
vivons  de  la  vie  eternelle.  ...  II  n’y  a  de  repos 
pour  l’esprit  que  dans  l’absolu,  pour  le  sentiment 
que  dans  l’infini,  pour  Fame  que  dans  le  divin. 
.  .  .  II  n’y  a  qu’une  chose  necessaire:  posseder 
Diem” 

La  vie  est  une  lutte  et  des  lors  un  supplice, 

Et  e’est  la  sa  laideur,  et  e’est  la  mon  effroi. 

L’harmonie  et  la  paix  sont  mes  desirs  a  moi, 

C’est  pourquoi  vers  ton  gouffre,  6  saint  Bouddha,  je  glisse. 

Is  it  not  the  stirrings  of  a  yearning  for  God  that 
arouse  this  angry  swarm  of  discontents  ? 


[  57  ] 


C(?e  3?nfFuence  of  (DJmtian  Ctabifion 

£Uii  autcm  Xe  per  contcmptuin  mundanorum,  et  carnte  mortfftca// 
tioncm  aequuutur,  vcrc  eapicntcs  ceoe  coguoscuntur :  quia  dc 
xsxnimtc  ad  vcritatctn,  de  carne  ad  epfritum  tranaferimtur. 

£i?oma0  a  Rcmpte 

OLITARIES,  as  I  have  said, 
either  before  they  leave  the  W orld, 
or  after  they  have  left  it,  become 
religious-minded,  and  it  is  true 
that  their  religious-mindedness  is 
likely  to  be  colored  by  the  Christian  doctrines 
which  the  World  has  so  long  professed.  Certainly 
not  only  Eugenie  de  Guerin  but  also  Senancour 
and  Amiel  were  deeply  affected  by  them.  Those 
Christian  doctrines  sanction  and  approve  the  idea 
and  practice  of  the  monastic  system  —  manual 
and  intellectual  labor  of  certain  limited  kinds, 
prayer,  spiritual  exercises,  and  meditation.  The 
modern  solitary  who,  we  may  suppose,  has  wan¬ 
dered  far  from  sectarian  dogmas,  is  apt  to  prick 
up  his  ears  at  this  sanction.  He  scents  supersti¬ 
tion.  He  is  fearful  lest  Christianity  should  prove 
to  be  much  more  than  sponsor,  that  if  there  had 
been  no  Christian  Church,  there  would  have  been 
no  monastic  practices,  no  discipline  of  solitude,  no 
prayer,  no  spiritual  exercises,  no  meditation,  but 

[  58  ] 


( Cfje  Jnftnencc  of  Cfjmtian  tradition 

that  all  such  ideas  and  doings  would  have  been 
relegated  long  ago  to  the  limbo  of  outworn  su¬ 
perstitions.  He  is  afraid  that  though  Christian¬ 
ity  may  lay  claim  to  poetry  and  visions  beauti¬ 
ful,  yet  the  World  holds  fast  to  common  sense 
and  truth,  and  that  for  the  sake  of  his  intellec¬ 
tual  integrity  he  must  not  take  up  with  ideas  and 
practices  that  spring  from  error. 

Let  us  give  this  apprehension  due  weight.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  the  Christian  Church  has 
moulded  our  civilization  and  our  ways  of  thought, 
and  still  maintains  dominion  over  our  senti¬ 
ments,  and  through  them  affects  our  judgment. 
She  plays  a  great  part  in  matters  that  touch  our 
dearest  emotions.  She  enters  as  a  solemn  visit¬ 
ant  into  the  great  ceremonies  of  life  and  death, 
she  has  inherited  much  of  the  noblest  achieve¬ 
ments  in  art,  her  cathedrals  are  the  most  glo¬ 
rious  buildings  on  earth,  her  steeples  and  bel¬ 
fries  add  a  charm  to  the  loveliest  landscapes  that 
embrace  human  habitations,  and  on  Sundays 
and  feast  days  she  displays  her  power  and  au¬ 
thority  in  every  city,  town,  village,  and  hamlet. 
The  position  of  Christ  in  theological  thought 
is  proof  of  her  amazing  hold  on  educated  men. 
Many  a  philosopher  still  professes  her  dogmas, 
and  her  traditions  exert  a  profound  influence 

[  59  ] 


fito  Ulita  #?on«etica 

upon  us  all.  It  is  very  difficult  for  earnest- 
minded  men  who  yearn  after  things  of  the  spirit 
to  approach  any  problem  of  spiritual  life  quite 
free  from  the  ideas  taught  by  the  Church.  If  that 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  system  invented  the 
road  that  leads  away  from  the  World  and  de¬ 
vised  those  practices  which  St.  Benedict  coun¬ 
seled  as  right  occupations  for  the  employment 
of  solitude,  then  the  pilgrim  should  undoubt¬ 
edly  pause  and  consider.  Nevertheless,  it  often 
happens  that  one  road  serves  men  who  travel 
from  very  different  motives:  one  traveler  may 
take  the  high  road  to  London  for  the  sake  of 
pleasure,  another  for  business,  and  yet  it  will 
lead  a  third  to  worship  at  Westminster  Abbey. 

The  Church  may  be  wrong  in  her  dogmas, 
wrong  in  her  interpretation  of  the  solution  of 
the  deepest  problem  in  life,  notwithstanding, — 
and  herein  lie  her  strength  and  her  justification, 
— she  poses  that  problem  correctly.  She  has  taken 
to  heart  the  saying  of  her  Lord,  that  man  cannot 
live  by  bread  alone;  she  perceives  that  human 
weakness  reaches  out  its  hand,  that  man  craves 
a  satisfaction  which  the  senses  cannot  yield :  she 
recognizes  his  aspiration  toward  knowledge  of  re¬ 
ligious  truth,  his  yearning  for  a  Divine  Friend, 
his  hunger  for  Infinite  Love.  Such  phraseology 

[  60  ] 


(€($c  ^Influence  of  €^tietian  f&vahition 

as  this  may  not  be  acceptable  to  the  pilgrim,  but 
put  into  other  words  it  means  nothing  else  than 
that,  for  some  persons  at  least,  a  man’s  salvation 
lies  in  turning  toward  a  knowledge  of  that  which 
shall  best  satisfy  his  craving  for  knowledge,  and 
toward  a  love  that  shall  best  satisfy  his  craving 
for  love.  And  the  pilgrim  himself  cannot  formu¬ 
late  his  problem  otherwise  than  as  a  conscious¬ 
ness  of  a  driving  need  for  intellectual  and  emo¬ 
tional  satisfaction. 

The  Christian  system  fared  badly  when  the 
World  laid  hands  upon  it;  men  of  the  World, 
servants  of  ambition  or  pleasure  or  compromise, 
added,  altered,  painted,  and  rearranged,  put  tin¬ 
sel  on  and  gaudy  trimmings,  and  covered  up  the 
simple  outline  of  the  first  design.  But  when  these 
trappings  and  amplifications  are  pulled  off,  the 
formula  of  human  needs  reappears  in  its  native 
simplicity.  Th^se  needs  are  inherent  in  human 
nature.  To  these  Christianity  added  hope,  and 
the  Church  added  dogma.  So  long  as  the  pil¬ 
grim  follows  the  road  taken  by  these  religious 
needs,  inherent  in  the  heart  of  man,  he  should  not 
be  troubled  merely  because  Christian  hope  and 
ecclesiastical  dogma  are  companions  of  his  way. 

Grant  that  infinite  multiplicity  is  assumed  to 
be  a  unity  because  of  the  nature  of  the  human 

[  61  ] 


fito  Wita  $?onaetica 

mind  or  because  of  the  tendency  of  philosophic 
thought  to  simplification;  grant  that  God  is 
identified  with  Jesus  Christ  because  of  our  in¬ 
ability  to  deal  with  metaphysical  problems,  of 
our  practical  human  need  that  Godhead  be  ex¬ 
pressed  in  terms  intelligible  to  men  of  all  kinds 
and  classes;  grant  that  the  Holy  Ghost  depends 
upon  the  assumption  that  our  human  craving 
for  holiness  implies  an  objective  reality;  grant 
that  the  Church  is  the  corporate  expression  of 
human  need  for  a  royal  road  by  which  common 
men  may  travel  toward  that  which  for  them  is 
the  highest;  grant  to  skepticism  the  justice  of  all 
its  doubts,  grant  to  those  who  deny  the  Chris¬ 
tian  creed  the  truth  of  all  their  denials;  never¬ 
theless,  you  but  show  the  more  plainly  the  two 
elementary  religious  needs  of  the  human  heart, 
knowledge  and  love.  These  remain  in  spite  of 
doubt  and  denial,  the  data  for  the  gravest  human 
problem. 


[  62  ] 


3e 

&ome  iEirounbe  of  iDoii6t 

Xtycoe  our  actors,  as  5  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits. 

XI ?e  jCcmpcst 

F,  however,  the  pilgrim  is  still  afraid 
that  he  may  be  sinning  against 
his  intellectual  integrity,  that  the 
World  maybe  right  in  asserting 
that  men  should  stick  to  prose, 
should  take  the  universe  as  the  senses  reveal  it, 
should  enjoy  life  all  they  can,  not  drop  the  bone 
for  the  shadow,  like  the  dog  in  the  fable,  let  him 
reflect  for  a  little  upon  the  nature  of  that  cer¬ 
tainty  which  seems  to  the  World  so  firm  and  solid. 
A  very  brief  consideration  will  raise  doubts,  and 
incline  him  to  suspect  that  poetry  may  hold  as 
much  truth  as  there  is  in  prose,  or  possibly  more. 

I  accept  (let  us  suppose)  my  subjective  self;  I 
am  a  spectator  that  perceives;  but  what  is  it  that 
I  perceive  ?  A  long  stream  of  pageantry  forever 
shifting,  flowing  onward  like  a  river,  the  present 
scene  passing  rapidly  beyond  the  horizon  of  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  a  new  succession  of  imagery  com¬ 
ing  into  its  place,  and  yet  never  a  glimpse  of  the 
machinery,  if  there  be  such,  that  shifts  the  scenes. 
So  it  is  from  birth  to  death,  from  dark  to  dark,  a 

[  63  ] 


pto  Vlita  (tyonaetica 

stream  of  pageantry  and  nothingmore.  Ifwe  draw 
the  inference  that  there  must  be  some  reality  to 
cause  these  shifting  pictures — vibrations  ofether 
to  cause  our  perception  of  light,  vibrations  of  air 
to  create  sounds,  and  other  manifestations  of  en- 
ergy  to  stir  other  sets  of  nerves  to  action,  never¬ 
theless,  across  the  chasm  that  divides  outer  vi¬ 
brations  from  the  pictures  in  consciousness  there 
is  no  bridge  of  explanation.  And  besides,  the 
nerves  respond  to  but  some  of  the  vibrations  that 
buzz  in  the  outer  world;  so  that  even  if  it  were 
possible  to  get  outside  of  consciousness  and  have 
knowledge  of  vibrations  as  they  really  are,  our 
knowledge  of  that  outer  world  would  be  but  frag¬ 
mentary  and  therefore  necessarily  misleading. 
And  further,  even  if  the  neural  shocks  that  reach 
the  brain  were  truth-bearing  messages  that  could 
be  interpreted  by  an  impartial  mind,  they  meet 
no  such  interpreter;  for  the  mind  has  been  so 
moulded  and  twisted  by  past  experiences  that  the 
original  message  is  quite  distorted  in  its  inter¬ 
pretation,  the  meaning  gets  translated  into  a  lot 
of  ready-made,  happy-go-lucky  sentences.  Every 
perception  is  tricked  out,  as  it  were,  in  the  tailor 
shop  of  memory  and  the  millinery  parlors  of 
imagination,  and  never  reaches  consciousness  in 
its  native  state.  And  if  we  consider  the  eternal 

[  64  ] 


Jiome  if)totwfc6  of  £)ou6t 

sequences  of  movements,  causes  and  effects,  how 
can  we  be  sure  that  this  effect,  or  that,  necessarily 
follows  upon  a  cause  ?  Or,  if  we  turn  our  attention 
to  what  we  call  nature’s  laws,  what  indubitable 
warrant  have  we  to  believe,  for  instance,  that 
there  is  conservation  of  energy,  when  no  experi¬ 
ment  in  its  same  circumstances  can  ever  be  re¬ 
peated?  How  can  we  feel  confidence  in  any  in¬ 
formation  whatever  concerning  outward  reality? 

And  if  we  pass  from  the  stuff  of  life  to  its  pat¬ 
tern,  the  World  has  still  less  justification  to  de¬ 
mand  our  acceptance  of  its  views.  To  be  sure,  in 
this  particular  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  possess  a 
theory  of  its  own,  since  the  doctrine  of  “  Let  us 
eat,  drink,  and  be  merry”  ignores  all  questions 
of  why,  whence,  and  whither ;  nevertheless,  when 
the  World — if  it  ever  bothers  its  head  at  all 
about  the  matter  —  takes  over  from  science  the 
hypothesis  of  irrational  forces,  it  fares  no  bet¬ 
ter,  for  science  has  no  theory  upon  metaphysical 
causes  and  ends.  Science  merely  propounds  a 
series  of  activities,  which  quite  without  purpose 
have  constituted  this  sensitive  instrument,  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  then  play  upon  it,  adagio  or  allegro, 
a  sequence  of  random  notes.  Such  an  hypothesis 
seems  fantastic,  almost  whimsical,  as  an  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  pattern  of  life. 

[  65  ] 


fito  Vlita  ($}cma6ttca 

But  suppose  the  novice  insists  upon  credu¬ 
lity,  and  wishes  to  believe  that  the  perceptions  re¬ 
port  external  reality  as  it  actually  is;  how  can  he  ? 
If  he  examines  his  mind,  he  finds  it  primarily 
an  organ  to  secure  the  preservation  of  his  life. 
Its  natural  propensities  are  to  fix  its  attention  on 
food  and  drink,  sleep,  danger,  and  escape.  Ani¬ 
mals  with  intellectual  aptitudes  for  metaphysical 
truth  could  never  have  survived.  The  mind  is  an 
instrument,  like  another,  shaped  and  adapted  for 
its  primary  uses.  If  reality  in  all  its  endless  vari¬ 
ety  passes  before  it,  the  mind  will  perceive  and 
grasp  only  what  may  serve  its  body’s  interests. 
And  even  if  it  have  avocations,  and  lay  hold  of 
aspects  of  reality  that  do  not  concern  the  primary 
instincts,  what  warrant  is  there  that  it  does  so 
from  a  love  of  truth?  And  supposing  the  mind 
be  obsessed  by  a  love  of  truth,  what  hope  is  there 
that  it  grasps  even  a  thousandth  part  of  that 
multitudinous  reality?  If  a  reader  were  to  read 
only  every  tenth  word  of  a  book,  what  would  he 
know  of  its  contents  ? 

And  if  a  man,  before  he  puts  his  trust  in  what 
we  call  knowledge,  must  postulate  the  truthful¬ 
ness  of  perceptions,  he  must  do  as  much  for 
memories,  since  perceptions,  without  the  support 
and  interpretation  of  memories,  are  meaningless. 

[  66  ] 


Jjome  lf)t:oun&0  of  Oou6t 

But  reflection  shows  how  capricious  memory  is. 
Of  a  hundred  thousand  perceptions  only  a  bare 
scattering  are  remembered;  and  these  all  by 
favor.  Here,  too,  the  body’s  interests  are  para¬ 
mount.  M.  Bergson  says  that  one  function  of  the 
mind  is  to  forget,  to  discharge  itself  of  the  myr¬ 
iad  superfluous  perceptions  that  our  senses  pile 
upon  us. 

And  there  is  a  further  difficulty  about  mem¬ 
ory.  What  proof  is  there,  apart  from  convenience 
to  philosophy,  that  to-day’s  memory  is  a  true 
counterpart  of  yesterday’s  perception?  To  be 
sure,  the  image  in  memory  asserts  its  own  truth¬ 
fulness,  but  what  evidence  can  it  adduce?  Yes¬ 
terday’s  perception  is  gone,  never  to  return;  we 
cannot  recapture  it,  set  it  and  its  memory  side 
by  side,  and  compare  the  two.  And  what  reason  is 
there  to  suppose  that  memory  is  more  veracious 
than  perception?  And  yet  perception  is  a  notori¬ 
ous  false  witness,  for  as  we  know,  it  flatly  asserts 
the  objective  existence  of  color,  solidity,  sub¬ 
stance,  and  science  denies  all  this. 

However,  let  credulity  have  its  way,  and  not 
only  accept  the  truthfulness  of  perceptions  and 
of  memories,  but  also  assume  that  memory  pre¬ 
serves  what  is  pertinent  and  necessary  to  a  true 
comprehension  of  reality;  even  with  this  raw 

r  67  ] 


pto  Ulita  (tyotiaetica 

material  all  secure,  in  order  to  decipher  and  com¬ 
prehend  the  meaning  of  that  material,  the  novice 
must  have  recourse  to  reason.  All  our  perceptions 
and  memories  are  sifted,  sorted,  arranged,  placed 
in  sequences  and  figures,  by  reason;  for  it  is 
not  the  rude  chaos  of  perceptions  and  memories 
that  of  itself  is  supposed  to  reveal  reality,  but 
the  rearrangement  by  reason.  And  how  can  we 
put  confidence  in  reason  ?  Look  at  its  origin  in 
order  to  judge  of  its  authority.  We  find  that,  in 
the  course  of  life  upon  this  globe,  reason  is  com¬ 
paratively  a  newcomer.  In  the  biological  scale, 
long  before  we  go  back  to  our  unicellular  ances¬ 
tors,  there  are  no  traces  of  human  reason  to  be 
found,  no  laws  of  thought  in  operation,  no  power 
to  feel  the  cogency  of  hence  and  therefore.  The 
origins  of  life  lie  far  back  of  the  beginnings  of 
reason,  in  a  “dark  backward  and  abysm”  of  ele¬ 
mentary  stimuli  and  reactions.  What  warrant 
have  we,  then,  for  a  belief  that  reason,  born  of 
things  without  reason,  can  and  does  arrange  our 
perceptions  and  memories  in  accordance  with  the 
pattern  of  objective  things  that  exist  outside  of 
mind  ? 

Difficulty  treads  on  the  heels  of  difficulty.  If 
reason  may  be  trusted,  nevertheless  its  processes 
and  conclusions  must  be  expressed  in  words,  and 

[  68  ] 


J>ome  iStounbe  of  £)ou6t 

words  are  full  of  prejudices,  inheritors  of  old  par¬ 
tisanships,  most  fitful  in  their  elusive  and  subtle 
metamorphoses.  And  suppose  that  we  vault  over 
these  obstacles,  we  find  from  observation  that  in 
practice  we  pay  little  regard  to  reason.  Many  an¬ 
other  guide  exercises  quite  as  much  control  over 
our  beliefs  as  reason  does.  Authority,  for  instance, 
or  fashion.  The  routine  of  daily  life,  our  food,  our 
customs,  our  schools,  churches,  courts  of  law,  our 
tastes,  our  admirations,  obey  authority  or  fashion. 
In  all  the  great  interests  of  life,  as  the  potter’s 
wheel  shapes  the  vessel  of  clay,  so  imitation,  not 
reason,  shapes  our  conduct.  And,  looking  further 
afield,  human  life  appears  to  be  very  impatient 
of  reason,  eager  to  get  rid  of  it  as  a  troublesome 
accessory.  That  part  of  the  business  of  corporeal 
life  best  carried  on,  such  as  breathing,  digestion, 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  is  quite  free  from  the 
interference  of  reason.  Bodily  acts  that  follow 
mechanically  upon  stimuli  are  our  best;  next  in 
merit  come  instinctive  actions.  Consider  what 
would  happen,  if  in  a  moment  of  imminent  dan¬ 
ger  action  should  pause  while  reason  was  debat¬ 
ing  whether  life  is,  or  is  not,  worth  the  living.  In 
the  scale  of  biological  merit,  next  to  instinctive 
action  comes  habitual  action,  such  as  reading, 
writing,  walking,  eating,  which  have  properly 

[  69  ] 


fito  IHta  OftonaGtica 

been  taken  from  reason  and  handed  over  to  habit. 
Wherever  life  has  been  able  to  shove  reason 
aside,  it  has  done  so. 

Surely  a  pilgrim  need  not  stick  to  the  prose  of 
common  sense,  nor  fear  lest  faith  and  imagina¬ 
tion  shall  lead  him  astray.  Faith  and  imagination 
are  the  two  distinguishing  traits  of  mind,  the  two 
factors  of  knowledge,  the  two  primal  conditions 
of  human  existence;  without  them  the  senses  and 
reason  would  be  the  very  shadow  of  vanity.  Why, 
then,  should  the  pilgrim  distrust  them  when  they 
busy  themselves  with  religious  matters? 


[  70  ] 


XJ, 

fotfe  TSountiee  of  Siotitube 

3  long  for  scenes  wl?erc  man  l?ae  never  trod  — 

Sc r  scenes  wljerc  woman  never  smiled  or  wept  — 
jCljer c  to  abide  witl;>  mp  Creator,  f5od, 

and  sleep  a  &  X  in  cl?ildl?ood  swectlp  slept, 

Sn\\  of  l?igl?  tljougljts,  unborn. 

5ol?n  Clare 

AN  it  be  that  the  World  is  right 
to  lay  its  stakes  on  physical  fact  as 
against  an  ideal  philosophy?  How, 
for  instance,  can  Dante’s  vision 
beautiful,  that  Donna  beata  e  bella , 
that  Florentine  maiden  so  endowed  and  informed 
with  heavenly  communion  that  she  is  become  all 
immortal  and  divine,  be  explained  as  superfluous 
imagery  in  consciousness,  sketched  at  hazard  by 
the  blind  hand  of  physical  fact,  busy  with  its  phys¬ 
ical  task,  as  if  charred  sticks  wheeled  on  a  barrow 
by  a  careless  laborer  might  rub  against  the  wall 
he  passes  by  and  trace  the  outline  of  Signorelli’s 
angels?  The  choice  before  the  pilgrim  seems  to 
lie  in  finding  the  cause  of  the  gorgeous  imagery 
in  Dante’s  mind,  either  in  the  blind  melee  of 
physical  energies,  unknown  except  as  causes  of 
such  imagery,  or  in  the  magnetic  force  of  some 
final  end  toward  which  struggling,  thwarted,  spir- 

[  71  ] 


pto  Vlita  &)ona6tica 

itual  instincts  pursue  their  course  “as  birds  their 
trackless  way.”  Is  he  to  believe  in  chaos  or  tele¬ 
ology,  in  Nature  or  God? 

Long  ago  Pascal  said:  “Voila  ce  que  je  vois 
et  ce  qui  me  trouble.  Je  regarde  de  toutes  parts, 
et  ne  vois  partout  qu’obscurite.  La  nature  ne 
m’offre  rien  qui  ne  soit  matiere  de  doute  et  d’in- 
quietude.  Si  je  n’y  voyais  rien  qui  marquat  une 
Divinite,  je  me  determinerais  a  n’en  rien  croire. 
Si  je  voyais  partout  les  marques  d’un  Createur, 
je  reposerais  en  paix  dans  la  foi.  Mais,  voyant 
trop  pour  nier,  et  trop  peu  pour  m’assurer,  je 
suis  dans  un  etat  a  plaindre,  et  ou  j’ai  souhaite 
cent  fois  que,  si  un  Dieu  la  soutient,  elle  le  mar¬ 
quat  sans  equivoque;  et  que,  si  les  marques 
qu’elle  en  donne  sont  trompeuses,  elle  les  suppri- 
mat  tout  a  fait;  qu’elle  dit  tout  ou  rien,  afin  que 
je  visse  quel  parti  je  dois  suivre.  Au  lieu  qu’en 
l’etat  ou  je  suis,  ignorant  ce  que  je  suis  et  ce  que 
je  dois  faire,  je  ne  connais  ni  ma  condition,  ni 
mon  devoir.  Mon  coeur  tend  tout  entier  a  con- 
naitre  ou  est  le  vrai  bien,  pour  le  suivre.” 

Who  wins  the  wager?  where  does  reality  lie? 
Dean  Inge  says:  “One  test  is  infallible:  what¬ 
ever  view  of  reality  deepens  our  sense  of  the  tre¬ 
mendous  issues  of  life  in  the  world  wherein  we 
move  is  for  us  nearer  the  truth  than  any  view 

[  72  ] 


T5ountice  of  J>of itube 

which  diminishes  that  sense.”  Surely  our  pilgrim 
need  not  fear  wronging  his  intellectual  integrity 
because  he  turns  his  back  upon  the  World’s  ma¬ 
terial  philosophy  as  well  as  on  the  World,  nor 
because,  upon  his  path  away  therefrom  to  soli¬ 
tude,  he  consorts  with  men  of  a  religious  mind, 
nor  even  with  persons  steeped  in  Christian  be¬ 
liefs.  Many  another,  not  a  Christian,  seeks  out 
solitude  and  its  religious  inspirations.  To  show 
that  our  pilgrim  need  not  be  fearful,  I  quote  from 
a  solitary  quite  free  from  theological  and  ecclesi¬ 
astical  traditions. 

“  Ah!  I  need  solitude.  I  have  come  forth  to  this 
hill  at  sunset  to  see  the  forms  of  the  mountains 
on  the  horizon — to  behold  and  commune  with 
something  grander  than  man.  Their  mere  dis¬ 
tance  and  unprofanedness  is  an  infinite  encour¬ 
agement.  It  is  with  infinite  yearning  and  aspira¬ 
tion  that  I  seek  solitude,  more  and  more  resolved 
and  strong.  .  .  . 

“  I  thrive  best  on  solitude.  If  I  have  had  a 
companion  only  one  day  in  a  week,  unless  it  were 
one  or  two  I  could  name,  I  find  that  the  value  of 
the  week  to  me  has  been  seemingly  affected.  It 
dissipates  my  day,  and  often  it  takes  me  another 
week  to  get  over  it.  .  .  . 

[  73  ] 


fito  Vlita  (fyonaetica 

“  There  is  nothing  so  sanative,  so  poetic,  as 
a  walk  in  the  woods  and  fields  even  now,  when 
I  meet  none  abroad  for  pleasure.  Nothing  so  in¬ 
spires  me  and  excites  such  serene  and  profitable 
thought.  The  objects  are  elevating.  In  the  street 
and  in  society  I  am  almost  invariably  cheap  and 
dissipated,  my  life  is  unspeakably  mean.  But 
alone  in  distant  woods  or  fields,  in  unpretend¬ 
ing  sprout-lands  or  pastures  tracked  by  rabbits, 
even  in  a  bleak  and,  to  most,  cheerless  day,  like 
this,  when  a  villager  would  be  thinking  of  his 
inn,  I  come  to  myself,  I  once  more  feel  myself 
grandly  related,  and  that  cold  and  solitude  are 
friends  of  mine.  I  suppose  that  this  value,  in  my 
case,  is  equivalent  to  what  others  get  by  church¬ 
going  and  prayer.  .  .  .  It  is  as  if  I  always  met  in 
those  places  some  grand,  serene,  immortal,  infi¬ 
nitely  encouraging,  though  invisible  companion, 
and  walked  with  him.  This  is  a  common  expe¬ 
rience  in  my  traveling.  I  plod  along,  thinking 
what  a  miserable  world  this  is  and  what  miserable 
fellows  we  that  inhabit  it,  wondering  what  it  is 
tempts  men  to  live  in  it;  but  anon  I  leave  the 
towns  behind  and  am  lost  in  some  boundless 
heath,  and  life  becomes  gradually  more  tolerable, 
if  not  even  glorious.  .  .  .  Solitude  was  sweet  to 
me  as  a  flower.  ...  I  love  to  be  alone.  I  never 

[  74  ] 


TSountiee  of  3o?itube 

found  the  companion  that  was  so  companionable 
as  solitude.” 

But  in  addition  to  the  reproach  of  outworn  reli¬ 
gious  beliefs,  critics  of  the  recluse  often  charge 
that  solitude  involves  mental  emptiness  and  idle¬ 
ness.  Not  at  all.  There  is  no  more  reason  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  a  solitary  is  empty-headed  and  idle 
than  that  men  of  the  World  are  empty-headed 
and  idle.  Undistraught  by  the  society  of  men,  the 
solitary  may  turn  his  attention  to  other  creatures 
and  created  things ;  he  substitutes  new  interests 
for  old;  he  has  leisure  to  look  about  him  at  this 
curious  universe  and  turn  over  some  of  its  pages. 
There  are  all  the  stars  of  the  sky,  “the  Pleiades, 
the  late-setting  Bootes,  the  Bear,  which  men  also 
call  the  Wain,  that  circles  round  in  its  place  and 
gazes  at  Orion,”  just  as  they  were  when  Odysseus 
set  his  course  by  them  and  steered  his  raft  from 
Calypso’s  isle  to  the  landof  the  Phaeacians.  There 
is  the  earth  with  all  its  elements  and  energies,  its 
records  of  ancient  times,  of  physical  mutations 
and  geological  contortions,  where  the  recluse 
may  sit  upon  the  ground  and  read  sad  stories 
of  dead  nations,  species  extinct,  and  epochs 
barely  decipherable.  He  may  make  acquaintance 
with  humble  fellow  travelers  from  birth  to  death, 

[  75  ] 


pto  VHta  d?onaefica 

horses,  dogs,  sheep,  cats,  —  they  are  but  other 
manifestations  of  the  wayward  spirit  of  life,  for 
the  breath  they  breathe  is  one  with  ours,  —  the 
shy  squirrel  that  may  by  patience  be  coaxed  to 
accept  morsels  from  the  solitary’s  lunch,  the  bees 
busily  bringing  pollen  from  stamens  near  at  hand 
to  pistils  far  away,  all  unwitting  (as  we  with  our 
odd  conceptions  of  knowledge  assume)  that  they 
are  creating  fresh  sources  of  nectar  and  ambrosial 
meal  for  the  next  generation  of  bees. 

There  are  the  wild  flowers  in  all  their  modesty 
and  glory :  the  blueweed  that  covers  barren  fields 
with  a  benediction  of  violet  hue,  such  as  Fra  An¬ 
gelico  chooses  for  the  saints  in  Paradise;  the  joe- 
pye  weed  that  might  supply  color  for  Persian 
painters  painting  a  sultan’s  palace  in  Persepolis; 
the  staminate  early  meadow-rue  that  shakes  its 
drooping  stamens  like  golden  bells  at  a  fairy 
wedding;  the  yellow  melilot  that  might  grow  in 
a  poet’s  dreams;  and  pendulous  bellworts  that 
hang  their  heads  under  the  burden  of  their  Latin 
polysyllables.  The  World  cares  little  for  road¬ 
sides,  upland  pastures,  swamps,  or  stony  fields ; 
it  prefers  Broadway,  the  Boulevard  Haussmann, 
Piccadilly.  The  solitary  does  not  wish  to  divert 
the  World  from  its  haunts  and  bring  it  to  his 
solitude — by  no  means;  why,  then,  should  not 

[  76  ] 


(TE0e  Tbomtm  of  £>otitube 

the  World  let  the  solitary  alone,  or  even  gently 
encourage  him  in  his  retired  ways,  instead  of  call¬ 
ing  him  a  slacker  and  a  do-nothing? 

But  the  ultimate  justification  of  solitude  lies 
in  its  function  as  a  nurse  to  the  religious  spirit. 
Many  a  man  finds  there,  and  there  only,  what 
W ordsworth  refers  to  as  the  sense  “  of  something 
far  more  deeply  interfused,”  and  which  old  Seneca 
calls  “the  presence  of  some  god.”  An  effluence 
emanates  from  Nature,  as  if  the  great  mother,  in 
the  closer  communion  and  deeper  sympathy  of 
solitude,  folded  her  arms  about  her  children  and 
hummed  old  tunes  which  she  had  heard  before 
the  birth  of  worlds. 

In  solitude  the  recluse  has  leisure  to  ponder 
over  the  most  significant  fact  in  life:  that  there 
are  values.  I  do  not  mean  the  difference  of  rank 
in  the  organic  scale  of  creation,  but  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  “better”  or  “worse”  that  the  perceiv¬ 
ing  mind  passes  upon  all  images  that  excite  its 
interest.  It  seems  as  if  that  high  judicial  faculty 
dealt  with  the  inmost  verity  in  life.  And  in  soli¬ 
tude,  far  better  than  in  company,  the  recluse  may 
brood,  during  what  time  he  likes,  over  specula¬ 
tion  as  to  whither  this  verity  may  lead  us. 


[  77  ] 


X33 

(Efje  Ulcgct«6fe 

0eck  and  ye  sljall  find. 

0t.  iDattl?cw,  vii :  7 

ISCONTENT  with  false  values 
is  the  motive  that  has  impelled 
all  monks  and  recluses,  from  St. 
Anthony  to  Thoreau,  to  leave  the 
World.  Solitude,  I  repeat,  best  can 
furnish  the  recluse  with  the  conditions  under 
which  he  may  hope  to  readjust  those  values 
until  they  shall,  at  last,  rest  on  the  foundation 
of  complete  mental  satisfaction.  In  solitude  the 
monks  of  old  attained  that  goal.  If  we  go  on  a 
quest,  all  agree  that  it  is  prudent  to  start  with 
an  hypothesis;  and  the  most  reasonable  hypoth¬ 
esis  must  be  based  on  the  experience  of  other 
seekers,  who  believe  that  they  have  found.  Why 
should  we  be  deterred  because  they  expressed 
the  satisfaction  of  attainment  in  an  outworn  the¬ 
ological  and  ecclesiastical  language?  Has  Cicero 
nothing  to  say  to  us  because  he  wrote  in  Latin, 
or  Homer  because  he  wrote  in  Greek?  Those 
monastic  seekers  thought  that  they  had  come 
upon  reality,  and  they  called  it  God;  and  in  the 
acceptance  of  values  based  upon  that  reality  they 

[  78  ] 


® }c  VleQctaBCe  :pafc# 

found  peace.  Modern  seekers  are  doubtful  if 
men’s  minds  can  lay  hold  of  reality;  and  yet  it 
is  difficult  to  suppose  that  he  who  has  attained 
to  perfect  peace  can  be  persuaded  that  he  has 
not  touched  reality  at  least  with  his  finger-tips. 
Some  modern  philosophers  declare  their  belief 
in  a  Reality,  all-embracing,  of  which  finite  crea¬ 
tures,  each  in  its  several  way,  are  finite  expres¬ 
sions. 

The  recluses  of  old  withdrew  from  among  the 
congregations  of  men  and  built  a  monastery 
out  of  wood  and  stone,  bricks  and  mortar,  on  a 
remote  mountain-side,  or  in  some  clear  valley 
where  they  should  hear  the  waters  of  a  river 
hurrying  to  find  peace  in  the  great  sea,  quel  mare 
al  qual  tutto  si  move.  A  monastery,  as  its  name 
shows,  is  primarily  a  place  where  one  lives  alone, 
or,  at  least,  a  place  for  the  practice  of  solitude. 
Absolute  separation  from  all  men  is  virtually  im¬ 
possible,  and  that  is  not  what  the  recluse  seeks. 
His  need  is  merely  separation  from  what  he  calls 
the  World.  And  according  to  traditional  usage 
a  monastery  provides  not  only  solitude  but  also 
modes  of  employment.  Of  these  modes  four  are 
preeminent — garden,  library,  oratory,  and  cell. 
This  system  is  still  a  wise  guide;  the  recluse  in 
his  retreat  cannot  do  better  than  to  follow  it. 

[  79  ] 


fito  iilittt  ftfonaetica 

The  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life. 
The  mediaeval  world  is  past,  its  social  institu¬ 
tions  are  gone,  the  feudal  system  will  never  re¬ 
turn,  nor  will  the  great  monastic  orders  ever  lift 
their  heads  again.  But  as  graftings  from  a  wild 
stock  maybe  brought  into  the  orchard,  and  seeds 
from  mountain  flowers  be  planted  in  a  garden 
bed,  so  it  is  possible  to  bring  from  the  long  past 
ideas  that  once  clothed  themselves  in  antique 
or  mediaeval  forms  and  will  now  take  modern 
shapes  and  add  richness  and  variety  to  our  mod¬ 
ern  ways  of  doing  and  thinking.  Even  the  feudal 
system  may  stimulate  our  imagination.  In  feudal 
times,  social  inequality  —  men  rising  one  above 
another  in  place  and  dignity,  of  diverse  educa¬ 
tion  and  diverse  occupations,  groups  and  classes 
varying  in  duties  and  privileges,  with  different 
modes  and  conditions  of  living — presented  the 
spectacle  of  a  society  in  which  men  looked  up 
without  envy  or  malice,  and  even  found  life 
richer  from  the  thought  that  there  were  degrees 
of  excellency  and  honor,  and  imagined  that  it 
was  a  privilege  to  serve  and  work  for  somebody 
better  than  oneself.  But  most  men  prefer  a  level 
plain  to  the  mountains ;  they  can  build  railroads, 
drive  motor  cars,  trucks,  and  lorries  more  expe¬ 
ditiously  in  the  flat  country,  build  cities  more 

[  8°  ] 


Zilegeta6£e  ^DatclJ 

easily,  and  accumulate  wealth  far  more  speedily. 
And  yet  some  men  had  rather  be  poor  moun¬ 
taineers  and  live  in  highlands,  surrounded  by 
peaks  and  mountains  that  lift  their  tops  toward 
heaven,  than  to  be  rich  burgesses  dwelling  in  the 
plains.  In  like  manner  the  bygone  monastic  sys¬ 
tem  offers  ideas  and  suggestions  to  us  of  to-day. 
Let  me  avail  myself  of  it  as  an  allegory :  for  as  we 
still  go  to  the  Bible  to  find  the  deepest  religious 
experience  of  mankind,  so  in  the  monastic  sys¬ 
tem  we  shall  find  recorded  a  great  part  of  what¬ 
ever  success  men  have  achieved  in  their  search 
for  spiritual  wisdom.  Much  of  the  allegory  must 
be  taken  as  such,  but  other  parts  may  be  accepted 
literally  or  interpreted  as  if  parables,  according 
to  the  need  and  condition  of  the  reader. 

Let  the  recluse,  then,  begin  his  period  of  iso¬ 
lation  and  self-discipline  in  a  garden,  and  at  first, 
following  the  Benedictine  regulation  of  labor  in 
return  for  livelihood,  let  him  go  to  work  in  the 
vegetable  patch.  It  is  not  necessary  that  this 
monastic  garden  be  shut  in  by  walls,  like  its 
European  predecessors  in  mediaeval  centuries; 
let  us  suppose  it  to  lie  far  out  in  the  open  coun¬ 
try,  with  the  bay  of  some  great  lake,  or  estuary 
of  the  sea,  spreading  out  its  curve  of  blue  at  the 
foot  of  the  monastic  precincts.  A  mountain  range 

[  81  ] 


fivo  Viita  &)onaetica 

bounds  the  horizon  to  the  north,  and  a  shelter¬ 
ing  fringe  of  spruce  and  hemlock  hedges  the 
garden  in.  Even  the  neighboring  hamlet  in¬ 
trudes  on  the  monastic  seclusion  no  further  than 
to  send  up  faint  columns  of  smoke  from  busy 
kitchens,  nor  theoutlyingfarms,  apartfrom  cheer¬ 
ful  barnyard  noises,  nor  the  farmer  except  when 
he  sings  or  whistles  as  he  drives  his  plough.  The 
recluse  lays  out  a  corner  of  the  garden  for  pota¬ 
toes.  Tie  looks  into  the  future,  and  sees,  in  his 
mind’s  eye,  rows  of  plants  full  grown,  laden  with 
leaves  and  flowers,  and  down  within  the  little 
mounds  of  earth,  clusters  of  tubers  Arm  and  fresh. 
This  vision  he  hopes  to  bring  to  birth  in  the 
world  of  tangible  things,  and  he  sets  out  to  co¬ 
ordinate  the  forces  of  nature  in  such  manner  that 
the  potato  patch  shall  come  to  be  a  copy  of  his 
thought.  Other  hands,  perhaps,  in  the  summer 
before,  digged  the  soil  deep;  and  during  the  win¬ 
ter  Jack  Frost  has  been  grinding  the  particles  of 
earth  finer  and  finer,  so  that  our  solitary  steps  in 
after  the  process  of  preparation  has  commenced. 
He  takes  a  spade,  digs  a  trench  north  by  south, 
six  inches  deep,  another  two  feet  away,  and  an¬ 
other,  until  the  patch  assigned  to  potatoes  is  all 
taken  up ;  he  then  lays  along  the  bottom  of  each 
trench  some  stimulating  fertilizer — an  admixture 

[  82  ] 


fatfe  Ule$eta6Ce  patcty 

of  wood  ashes,  lime,  dead  leaves,  together  with 
manure  from  the  barnyard  —  and  over  that  he 
scatters  a  thin  covering  of  earth.  These  strange 
bedfellows  prepare  the  ground  for  the  infant  life 
of  the  plant,  nurse  the  tender  sprout,  warm  and 
comfort  it,  and  enable  it  to  lift  its  haulm  out  of  the 
dark  into  the  air  and  sunlight.  Having  prepared 
the  bed,  the  recluse  must  take  parent  potatoes, 
carve  them  into  segments,  cutting  out  in  prefer¬ 
ence  the  eyes  from  the  apex,  and  lay  the  sets, 
eyes  upward,  along  the  bottom  of  the  trench 
(carefully,  lest  they  touch  the  manure  and  the 
flavor  of  the  future  potato  be  impaired),  and  then 
cover  them  with  earth.  And  when  he  has  done 
this  and  laid  aside  the  spade,  he  will  take  up  the 
hoe,  since  he  must  uproot  the  weeds;  for  though 
Nature  will  help  him  grow  potatoes,  yet  she  is 
the  universal  mother,  and  in  her  passionate,  way¬ 
ward  fashion,  loves  all  her  children — weeds,  as 
they  are  despitefully  called  by  lovers  of  domes¬ 
ticated  flowers,  quite  as  much  as  vegetables  or 
flowers  themselves.  Then  from  hoe  back  to  spade, 
to  bank  the  earth  about  the  sprouting  plants ;  for 
although  stalk,  leaves,  and  flowers  should  have 
all  the  sun  that  shines,  the  tubers,  often  much 
against  their  will,  must  stay  well  covered  up  in 
the  dark.  And  day  by  day,  through  all  the  grow- 

[  83  ] 


pto  Vlita  Qftonattka 

ing  season,  the  recluse  must  watch  the  plants,  and 
guard  them  jealously  from  insect  and  disease;  he 
must  mix  fungicide,  take  pump,  and  spray  and 
spray. 

When  his  back  feels  broken,  then  he  may 
pause  to  lean  upon  his  spade  and  muse  over  the 
process.  First,  clear  and  distinct  in  his  mind’s 
eye,  gleamed  the  idea,  and  this  idea  with  a  sort 
of  kingly  authority  summoned  him  to  work ;  it 
roused  desire,  desire  stirred  will,  and  will  in  some 
mysterious  way  despatched  currents  down  the 
motor  nerves ;  and  hands,  arms,  legs,  hurried  to 
combine  materials  and  forces  that  should  give 
corporeal  substance  to  his  original  idea.  Man, 
sunshine,  rain,  manure,  the  minerals  in  the  soil, 
all  toil  together  in  patient  collaboration  to  help 
the  little  underground  stems  lay  up  their  stores 
of  starch.  The  recluse  now  perceives  that  he  is 
an  agent  in  creation,  bringing  order  out  of  chaos, 
laying  a  yoke  on  the  neck  of  the  untamed  actual 
and  breaking  it  into  the  service  of  the  ideal.  But 
not  quite  that,  for  these  powers  are  as  ready  and 
eager  as  he;  they  are  not  slaves,  but  colaborers. 
In  the  idea  lies  power;  out  of  the  idea  flows  forth 
energy.  This  is  one  of  the  first  lessons  taught 
under  the  monastic  system. 


[  84  ] 


30373! 

lZC)e  jffovwc  l^atben 

U)td  'B.ature’0  old  felicities. 

Wordowortl? 

l^cureuje  celui  .  .  . 

iCLui  plane  our  la  vie  et  comprend  oano  effort 
Cc  laugage  dco  fleuro  et  deo  cljooco  muetteo ! 
Baudelaire 

HE  vegetable  patch  of  a  monas¬ 
tery  does  not  ask  of  its  gardener 
more  than  such  parts  of  his  time 
as  may  be  strictly  necessary  for 
the  crop,  since  the  monastic  rule 
recognizes  that  flowers  are  as  necessary  for  the 
spirit  as  food  is  for  the  body.  A  solitary  in  quest 
of  values  that  shall  rest  upon  the  ultimate  satis¬ 
factions  of  the  soul  must  go  by  way  of  a  flower 

Giovanni  Baptista  of  Ferrara,  full  of  a  noble 
confidence  that  the  flowery  path  will  lead  to 
heaven,  bids  one  tread  floridam  ad  ccelum  viarn . 
And  a  lay  brother  of  the  Carthusian  Order,  for 
thirty  years  gardener  to  the  Charter  House  in 
Paris,  says:  “The  culture  of  gardens  has  always 
been  looked  upon  as  the  fine  art  of  the  world: 
nothing  can  afford  more  pleasure  than  the  pur¬ 
suit  of  it.  This  is  the  pleasure  I  wish  to  a  curious 

[  85  ] 


pto  liiita  (fyonaetica 

person,  who  disengaged  from  the  tumultuous 
scene  of  the  world,  and  inspired  with  a  sense  of 
religion,  has  taken  up  a  resolution  to  pass  the  rest 
of  his  days  at  his  country-house,  where  he  may 
taste  the  innocent  pleasures  of  a  rural  life.” 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  Canterbury  Bell, 
Campanula  Medium.  If  it  is  not  a  poet’s  flower, 
like  daffodils,  pansies,  roses,  or  rue,  that  must  be 
because  its  name  will  not  fit  into  English  verse, 
for  surely  it  is  a  most  enchanting  and  romantic 
flower.  Bells  speak  a  language  of  their  own  to  the 
human  heart.  No  wonder  that  the  Church  as  pro¬ 
logue  to  its  liturgy  introduced  the  ringing  of  the 
bell.  A  bell  of  metal  cast  by  the  masters  at  Bruges 
is  an  exquisite  achievement  of  art  and  science. 
The  fused  metals  obey  their  foreordained  ratio; 
every  circle  and  curve  in  their  molten  union,  from 
crown  to  mouth,  has  been  prescribed  by  primal 
laws  that  rule  the  waves  of  sound.  And  when  the 
sun  sinks  below  the  horizon,  the  novice  leans  his 
hoe  against  the  wheelbarrow  and  listens  in  the 
direction  of  the  parish  church  till  a  rope  is  pulled, 
the  bell  swings,  and  the  heavy  clapper  strikes  the 
rim,  and  notes  of  solemn  music  fly  through  the  air 
and  in  devout  processional  glide  across  the  waters 
of  the  bay.  Ave  Maria!  Involuntarily  he  repeats 
such  verses  as  may  start  up  in  his  memory: 

[  86  ] 


(&tje  jffowct:  barbell 

Vergine,  s’  a  mercede 

Miseria  estrema  dell’  umane  cose 

Giammai  tivolse,  al  mio  prego  t’  inchina; 

Soccorri  alia  mia  guerra  ; 

Bench’  i’  sia  terra,  e  tu  del  del  regina. 

But  the  music  of  the  Canterbury  Bell  is  still  more 
melodious  and  devout.  For  my  part,  I  think, 
especially  when  it  wears  its  true  color,  blue  or 
white,  that  it  should  be  called  Campanula  Vir- 
ginis,  except  that  the  Campanula  is  far  older  than 
Christianity.  She  was  a  nymph.  As  the  story  is 
told,  her  father  was  a  fantastic  youth  who  always 
went  about  tinkling  a  bell,  and  her  mother 
“a  subterraneous  nymph,”  and,  so  long  as  the 
daughter  lived,  their  happiness  was  without  par¬ 
allel.  Campanula  was  vigilant  and  faithful;  and 
the  Hesperides,  mistresses  of  the  wonderful  gar¬ 
den,  gave  her  an  office  of  trust  in  it,  which  was 
that  whenever  a  thief  came  to  steal  the  golden 
apples,  she  should  arouse  the  guardian  dragon. 
Campanula  flung  herself  in  the  way  of  every  thief, 
and  at  his  touch  she  uttered  a  tinkling  sound 
that  warned  the  dragon.  But  one  night  a  robber 
murdered  her.  The  Hesperides,  in  order  to  com¬ 
fort  the  stricken  parents,  transmuted  her  body 
into  a  flower  and  planted  the  flower  in  their  gar¬ 
den,  and  gave  orders  that  it  should  be  carefully 

[  87  ] 


^Dro  Ikita  Qtyonaetica 

tended.  And  Sieur  Liger  d’Auxerre,  who  tells 
the  story,  says  a  fidelity  is  a  virtue  that  always 
recommends  a  man,  not  only  during  life,  but 
even  after  Destiny  has  lodged  him  in  his  grave.” 

The  Campanula  Virginis  is  very  beautiful;  and 
what  a  miracle!  A  little  seed,  a  little  soil,  a  little 
water,  and  the  glorious  sun,  and  down  go  little 
roots  into  the  earth,  the  green  stalk  lifts  its  head, 
its  tender  leaves  uncurl,  and  at  the  top  of  every 
stem  a  bud  starts  forth,  unfolds  its  corolla,  and 
becomes  a  bell.  Do  the  upholders  of  a  mecha¬ 
nistic  universe  go  into  their  laboratory  and  pro¬ 
duce  an  achievement  like  this  ?  The  psycholo¬ 
gists,  however,  tell  us  that  the  pleasure  we  get 
from  the  Campanula  Virginis  is  due  not  to  the 
sensations  of  light,  color,  line,  and  shape,  but  to 
an  accompanying  affection,  which  should  not 
be  confounded  with  the  sensations  themselves; 
nevertheless,  they  do  not  tell  us  what  raison  d'etre 
that  accompanying  affection  may  claim.  How  and 
why  did  this  sense  of  beauty  come?  Out  of  what 
was  it  evolved,  or  what  power  fashioned  it? 

Flowers  make  one  of  the  monastic  textbooks, 
and  the  lesson  that  St.  Benedict  the  poet  would 
have  the  solitary  learn  is  the  lesson  of  beauty. 
For  those  that  are  not  trained  psychologists  it 
is  not  an  easy  lesson.  What  biological  end  does 

[  88  ] 


(€f$e  jfCowet  l&aibcn 

the  love  of  beauty  serve?  If  the  recluse  shall, 
day  by  day,  as  the  sun  climbs  the  same  arc  of 
heaven,  watch  the  light  glide  softly  along  the 
outer  convexity  of  the  corolla  till  it  reach  the 
lip,  then  creep  within  and  gild  the  pistil  with  a 
deeper  yellow,  and  shift  the  hues  of  green  upon 
its  leaves,  does  he  make  himself  more  fit  to  out¬ 
live  his  less  sensitive  competitors  ?  Are  lovers  of 
beauty  survivors  in  the  struggle  for  life?  Does 
nature  select  them  as  a  favorable  variation?  It  is 
sometimes  said  that  delight  in  beauty  plays  a  role 
in  the  drama  of  sex;  but  what  planted  in  the 
feminine  mind  the  love  of  beauty?  Delight  in 
beauty,  if  it  shall  explain  the  victorious  wooing 
of  the  beautiful  lover,  must  have  arisen  first. 

In  the  monastery  beauty  teaches  other  dog¬ 
mas  and  another  goal,  another  theory  of  fitness. 
Can  it  be  that  beauty,  ofwhich  men  talk  so  much, 
is  a  mere  accident?  Is  the  spiritual  exhilaration 
engendered  of  loveliness  in  nature  and  art  of  no 
advantage  in  the  life  of  men  ?  Are  all  the  artists 
that  have  ever  lived  wholly  wrong?  Let  an  artist 
build,  write, compose,  paint,  or  model,  yet,  though 
his  work  should  last  for  a  thousand  years,  though 
he  should  receive  a  great  price,  though  his  name 
should  become  a  household  word,  if  he  knows 
that  there  is  no  beauty  in  his  handiwork  it  is  a 

[  «9  ] 


fito  Vlita  Qftonaetica 

failure  in  his  eyes,  one  vanity  the  more.  Is  beauty 
really  empty  of  all  meaning?  Art,  perhaps,  may 
achieve  its  purpose  in  human  appreciation,  in  the 
pleasure  of  the  moment  derived  from  the  work 
of  art.  But  Nature  differs  from  Art.  Nature  brings 
forth  nothing  that  is  an  end  in  itself;  whatever 
she  does  is  for  the  sake  of  that  which  shall  come 
after,  and  that,  too,  is  for  the  sake  of  its  succes¬ 
sors.  “In  sequent  toil  all  forwards  do  contend.” 

May  it  be  that  we  have  erred  by  assigning  to 
the  power  which  acts  through  Nature  a  mere  ma¬ 
terial,  a  mere  physico-chemical,  task  ?  The  theory 
in  the  monastery,  at  least,  is  that  beauty  serves 
some  ultimate  end,  is  some  masterful  manifes¬ 
tation  of  reality,  or,  as  the  old  phraseology  ex¬ 
pressed  it,  a  shadowing  forth  of  the  divine.  The 
solitary  is  taught  that  the  flower  should  give  him 
some  such  satisfaction  as  comes  to  a  traveler 
who  has  lost  his  way  in  the  forest,  when  he  catches 
sight  of  a  blazed  tree  and  learns  therefrom  the 
direction  that  shall  guide  him  toward  his  jour¬ 
ney’s  destination. 


[  90  3 


Ci6rarp 

Jn  eortem  ac  Itbcrtatcm  tranoicna  ftUorutn  JDei,  qut  atant 
super  pra*scntta  ct  speculaittur  aterna. 

Xljoinaa  a  Rcmpia 

HE  second  discipline  of  a  retreat 
is  the  library.  The  novice  might 
expect  to  find  upon  the  shelves 
books  of  theology  and  devout 
learning,  lives  of  saints,  treatises 
upon  ethics  and  such,  and  little  else.  He  would 
be  wrong.  The  monastery  imposes  no  such  lim¬ 
itations;  rather  it  encourages,  if  it  does  not 
oblige,  its  inmates  to  read  widely  in  any  or  all  re¬ 
gions  of  this  printed  world,  wandering  whither 
they  will.  Some  special  literature  or  topic  is  ad¬ 
vised.  On  first  quitting  the  World  there  is  like¬ 
lihood  that  the  recluse  is  too  much  under  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  grief,  cynicism,  or  scorn,  and  the  best 
way  to  wash  his  mind  of  these  impurities  and  re¬ 
store  it  to  a  state  of  serenity  is  to  steep  himself 
in  far-off  things.  Take  Greek  literature,  for  ex¬ 
ample.  One  need  be  no  scholar  in  order  to  stumble 
about  and  grope  one’s  way  in  Homer,  in  Plato, 
or  Euripides,  and  thereby  forget  oneself.  The 
strangeness  of  this  Greek  language,  with  its  sup- 

[  91  ] 


pio  Ulita  ®)ona$tka 

pleness  and  sinewy  elegance,  holds  the  recluse; 
and  the  Hellenic  world  in  all  its  richness  and 
nobility,  its  surrender  to  passion  and  its  love  of 
form,  is  the  best  of  medicines.  In  that  intenser 
world  of  old  the  modern  reader  cools  his  own 
heat  of  grief  or  disgust.  Here  is  diversion  in  its 
bestsense.  Behold  Achilles,  swift  of  foot,  andgod- 
like  in  his  strength  and  youthful  beauty,  mighti¬ 
est  of  warriors,  standing  by  his  tent  in  sullen  rage 
at  the  dishonor  put  upon  him  by  Agamemnon. 
In  his  absence  from  the  battle,  the  Trojans  have 
burst  their  way  over  the  protecting  wall,  across 
the  ditch,  and  are  setting  fire  to  the  Grecian  ships. 
His  dear  friend,  Patroclus,  runs  up  with  the  news, 
weeping;  and  great  Achilles  says:  — 

Why  dost  thou  weep,  Patroclus,  like  a  foolish 
Little  girl,  who  running  to  her  mother  asks 
To  be  taken  up,  tugs  at  her  gown  and  pulls 
Her  back  as  she  walks  on,  and  cries,  and 
Looks  with  longing,  till  she  be  taken  up. 

Thou  art  like  her,  Patroclus,  weeping  these  tender  tears. 

Does  not  the  scene  make  us  forget  ourselves? 
Or  take  the  most  famous  trial  in  history,  where 
Socrates  defends  himself  by  alleging  that  he  has 
followed  what  he  believed  to  be  the  divine  com¬ 
mand:  cc  Verily,  this  is  so,  ye  men  of  Athens. 

[  92  ] 


(€tfe  Ci6rarp 

Wherever  a  man  shall  take  his  place  in  the  bat¬ 
tlefield,  whether  he  thinks  that  to  be  the  best 
place,  or  has  been  ordered  there  by  the  com¬ 
mander,  there  —  as  I  think  —  he  should  stay,  and 
abide  danger,  and  not  deem  death  or  anything 
else  worse  than  shame.”  And  he  tells  his  judges 
that,  should  they  offer  to  spare  him  on  condition 
that  he  shall  refrain  from  his  former  ways,  he  will 
answer:  “  Ye  men  of  Athens,  I  entertain  high  re¬ 
gard  and  affection  for  you,  but  I  shall  obey  the 
god  rather  than  you;  and  so  long  as  I  live,  and 
am  able,  I  shall  not  give  up  philosophy,  nor  my 
exhortation,  nor  stop  expounding  my  belief  to 
any  one  of  you  that  I  may  meet,  saying  in  my 
customary  fashion,  cMy  dear  fellow, are  not  you, 
an  Athenian,  a  very  great  city  and  of  high  re¬ 
nown  for  wisdom  and  power,  ashamed  to  busy 
yourself  about  money,  striving  to  get  as  much 
as  you  can,  and  about  reputation  and  honors, 
and  not  busy  yourself  nor  take  thought  of  wis¬ 
dom,  and  truth,  and  of  your  80111?'  ...  For  I 
do  nothing  else  but  go  about  trying  to  persuade 
you,  both  young  and  old,  not  to  busy  yourselves 
about  your  bodies  or  about  money  more  than 
about  your  soul — how  it  may  become  very  noble; 
and  I  say  that  virtue  does  not  come  from  money, 
but  that  from  virtue  comes  money  and  all  other 

[  93  ] 


fito  Ditto  tyotiaetica 

good  things,  whether  to  the  individual  or  to  the 
state.  .  .  .  Therefore,  I  say,  O  Athenians,  acquit 
me  or  do  not  acquit  me,  for  I  shall  not  do  dif¬ 
ferently,  not  even  if  I  have  to  die  many  times.” 
There,  before  the  recluse,  as  he  reads  the  im¬ 
mortal  pages,  Socrates  pronounces  his  apology, 
in  the  presence  of  the  three  accusers,  while  to  the 
east  stands  the  acropolis  crowned  by  the  Parthe¬ 
non,  and  beyond  rise  the  outlines  of  Pentelicus 
and  Hymettus,  and  to  the  west  shimmers  the 
sea,  and  out  of  the  blue  waters  Salamis  lifts  her 
memorable  head;  and  there,  quivering  with  rev¬ 
erence  and  admiration,  in  among  the  blind-eyed 
judges,  for  the  moment,  stands  the  recluse  also, 
oblivious  of  the  two  thousand  five  hundred  years 
between. 

Or  if  he  be  troubled  by  the  sin-wrought  woe 
in  our  modern  world,  let  him  read  The  Trojan 
Women — how  Hecuba  goes  from  the  ruins  of 
high  prosperity  to  slavery. 

Fiction,  too,  is  part  of  the  discipline.  Here 
the  recluse,  as  it  were,  returns  to  the  World 
again  but  with  a  difference.  We  are  so  used  to 
this  world  of  fiction  that  it  appears  as  natural, 
as  much  a  matter  of  course,  as  the  physical 
world  of  ordinary  life;  and  we  are  apt  to  forget 
that,  as  a  rule,  a  novel  is  for  a  man  to  read  by 

[  94  ] 


(€#e  Ci6ratp 

himself  and  not  in  company,  that  it  is  a  sort  of 
handmaiden  to  solitude.  This  is  a  world,  so  far 
as  the  life  of  civilized  man  is  concerned,  as  ample, 
as  populous,  as  dramatic,  as  full  of  vicissitudes,  as 
the  world  of  sensuous  experience.  The  palaces 
of  Shakespeare,  Cervantes,  Goethe,  W alter  Scott, 
the  mansions  of  Tolstoi,  Balzac,  Victor  Hugo, 
Thackeray,  and  Dickens,  the  summer  parlors 
of  Stevenson,  Hawthorne,  Motte-Fouque,  Fo- 
gazzaro,  all  lie  open,  unobstructed  by  bolt  or 
bar.  In  these  places  of  delight  and  joy,  of  fear 
and  terror,  the  recluse  wanders  about  at  will, 
unseen,  unheard.  In  the  midst  of  the  stir  and 
bustle  of  life  he  preserves  his  solitude.  And  the 
reason  that  the  monastic  discipline  enjoins  such 
reading  is  that  at  the  beginning  of  his  novitiate 
there  is  danger  lest  the  recluse  be  too  much  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  repentance,  self-reproach,  regret,  and 
downheartedness;  not  at  once  can  he  attain  the 
source  of  strength  that  he  seeks.  Besides,  he 
must  not  let  his  heart  lose  the  one  good  gift  the 
World  occasions  —  its  quicker  beating  for  com¬ 
passion,  pity,  admiration,  or  scorn.  In  the  world 
of  fiction  he  beholds  Desdemona,  Cordelia,  Mar¬ 
guerite,  the  heroines  of  Turgueniev  or  George 
Eliot,  and  untrammeled  by  consciousness  of  self, 
embarrassment,  shyness,  incapacity,  unembit- 

[  95  ] 


pto  Ulita  Qtyonaetica 

tered  by  any  personal  wrong  from  the  doersof  evil, 
he  gives  himself  up  to  the  flood  of  sympathy. 

And  in  this  world  of  fiction  the  recluse  ob¬ 
serves  that  there  is  both  good  and  evil,  inter¬ 
mingling,  bound  together,  now  one  predomi¬ 
nant,  now  the  other,  but  neither  visible  in  the 
utter  absence  of  the  other,  twins,  each  depend¬ 
ent  for  existence  on  its  fellow.  And  yet,  in  spite 
of  the  eternal  presence  of  evil,  no  reader  blames 
the  author.  Nobody  is  indignant  with  Shake¬ 
speare  for  Lady  Macbeth,  lago,  Regan,  Goneril, 
or  thinks  that  he  did  wrong  to  create  them. 
Wickedness  is  part  of  the  texture  of  the  whole, 
the  shadow  against  which  the  light  shows  most 
triumphant.  And  further,  although  he  praises 
most  those  dramas  or  romances  in  which  there 
is  no  trace  of  the  master’s  hand,  but  each  char¬ 
acter  is  left  to  fashion  its  own  salvation  or  de¬ 
struction,  nevertheless,  if  he  be  a  real  lover  of 
books,  he  will  value  most  those  in  which,  as  he 
imagines,  he  can  discern  a  personality,  not  in 
this  act  or  that,  not  in  this  character  or  that  epi¬ 
sode,  but  rather  in  a  quality  comparable  in  sub¬ 
tility  to  the  ethereal  element  that  fills  the  inter¬ 
stellar  spaces  —  of  which  the  lover  of  books 
is  mysteriously  conscious,  as  of  the  memory  of 
something  fragrant  in  a  forgotten  dream. 

[  96  ] 


Ci6rat:y 

Most  of  all,  the  world  of  fiction,  being  a  world 
of  ideas,  teaches  the  recluse  that  in  order  to  make 
a  world  there  is  no  need  to  postulate  ponderable 
matter  or  shocks  of  energy;  that  consciousness 
is  the  ultimate  element;  and  that  ideas  constitute 
the  reality  that  enters  into  human  experience. 


[  97  ] 


XVI 

(£(}e  J>jmifttaf  fOowet  of  J>e$> 

JDonna  £  genttl  ncl  ciel. 

Jnfcrno,  ti,  94 

HE  quest  for  new  values,  the 
search  for  a  well  of  water  drinking 
wherefrom  one  shall  not  thirst 
again,  is,  according  to  the  World, 
a  wild  and  foolish  chase,  and  it 
is  certainly  so  far  wild  and  indeterminate  that  it 
is  much  more  prudent  for  the  seeker  to  adhere 
to  tradition  and  the  trodden  path.  Many  others 
have  sought;  and  the  road  of  tradition  is  the 
summing  up  and  conclusion  of  all  their  experi¬ 
ments.  This  road,  as  I  have  said,  led  men  from 
the  World,  whether  for  life  or  for  a  season,  into 
a  retreat  where  they  meditated  upon  spiritual 
forces  and  the  various  modes  of  the  revelation 
of  God.  In  these  meditations  some  were  stirred 
to  reverence  and  belief  by  the  story  of  the  New 
Testament;  others  by  the  beauty,  the  tender¬ 
ness,  the  grandeur  of  nature,  the  song  of  birds, 
the  expanse  of  ocean,  the  daffodils  that  outdare 
the  swallows,  the  rathe  primrose;  and  others  by 
the  miracle  of  human  love.  Animals  breed;  gross 
appetite  is  all  that  Nature  needs  to  induce  obe- 

[  98  ] 


( E$e  Jtpirituaf  ^Oower  of 

dience  to  her  great  law,  “  Be  fruitful  and  multi¬ 
ply  ”;  then  why  should  she  superfluously  squan¬ 
der  chemical  energy  merely  to  produce  a  pas¬ 
sion  more  a  hindrance  than  a  help,  that  would 
renounce  all  appetites  and  self  in  an  ecstasy  of 
metaphysical  imaginings  ?  Why  should  mere  ani¬ 
mal  union  bear  such  an  emphasis?  — 

I  love  thee  with  the  breath, 

Smiles,  tears,  of  all  my  life!  —  and,  if  God  choose, 

I  shall  but  love  thee  better  after  death, — 

why,  unless  the  end  of  life  be  to  attain  some 
higher  spiritual  existence,  to  mount  on  the  wings 
of  mystery  nearer  to  God,  or  to  serve  Him  by 
helping  bring  some  nobler  world  to  birth  ?  How¬ 
ever  much,  during  periods  of  retreat,  men  came 
to  find  God  in  the  New  Testament,  or  in  nature 
roundabout,  still  they  longed  for  an  ampler,  a 
more  intimate,  revelation;  and,  lo!  by  the  inter¬ 
vention  of  grace  induced  by  their  striving  after 
holiness,  the  scales  dropped  from  their  eyes  and 
they  perceived  that  here  in  common  life  is  the 
very  revelation  that  they  sought;  yet  how  full 
of  perplexity,  mystery,  and  evanescence.  The 
animal,  man,  stands  in  the  presence  of  a  mira¬ 
cle.  By  the  consecrating  magic  of  spiritual  love 
the  divine  is  revealed  in  the  human,  and,  while 

[  99  ] 


pto  Wta  onaetica 

that  passion  glows,  remains  visible;  but  when 
the  spiritual  fire  dies  away,  the  vision  vanishes. 
Whence  did  the  revelation  come,  and  whither 
did  it  go? 

Upon  such  speculations  men  in  retreat  are 
wont  to  ponder;  and  in  the  early  days  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  before  science  had  done  and  undone  all 
it  has,  a  result  of  that  pondering  was  to  apply 
the  talisman  of  sex  to  spiritual  uses,  and  person¬ 
ify  the  divine  revealed  in  woman.  Materials  lay 
ready  to  hand.  According  to  the  story,  a  Jewish 
maiden  was  betrothed  to  a  carpenter.  Her  first¬ 
born  son  went  forth  to  preach  his  doctrine  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  us.  In  the  brief 
biographies  that  tell  his  life  she  appears  but  mo¬ 
mentarily  here  and  there,  and  —  except  at  the 
annunciation  —  in  the  background.  She  keeps 
his  childish  sayings  in  her  heart,  as  all  mothers 
treasure  up  the  sayings  of  their  first-born  sons; 
she  goes  to  look  for  him  when  lost;  she  waits 
upon  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd  while  he  is 
preaching;  and  when  he  is  crucified  she  stands 
hard  by  the  cross.  A  scant  half  page  would  more 
than  hold  her  history,  and  yet  the  words  con¬ 
cerning  her  have  been  like  the  mustard  seed  in 
the  parable.  Human  needs  laid  hold  of  her. 
Christ,  abstracted  by  an  arid  theology,  had  as- 

[ 100  ] 


(&Qc  J)pir ituaC  fiowet  of  J>qp 

cended  to  the  highest  heaven,  to  act  as  Judge 
on  the  Dies  Ir<e>  leaving  behind  him  an  austere 
image  which  masters  in  mosaic  have  depicted  on 
choir  vaults  at  Venice  and  Monreale.  The  spec¬ 
ulative  intelligence  required  an  explanation  of 
the  spiritual  love  of  man  for  woman;  sinners 
needed  a  new  mediator;  men,  sensitive  to  the 
finer  influences  of  sex,  needed  a  mother,  needed 
a  maiden,  needed  the  sympathy  and  love  man 
cannot  give  to  man.  And  at  last  the  image  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  arose,  crowned  with  light.  By  her 
maidenhood  she  touched  the  sentiment  of  chiv¬ 
alry  in  man,  by  her  motherhood  she  entered 
every  human  heart.  Her  conception  was  im¬ 
maculate,  and  therefore,  the  natural  passing  into 
the  supernatural,  this  creature,  born  of  spiritual 
desire,  grew  to  become  the  tenderest,  the  most 
compassionate,  the  most  humanly  necessary 
emanation  from  the  godhead.  Down  from  heaven 
and  Deity  she  came,  maiden  and  mother,  to  earth 
and  men.  From  the  sculptors  of  Rheims  and  the 
glass-stainers  of  Chartres  to  Mending  and  Fra 
Angelico,  from  the  jongleur  of  Notre-Dame  to 
Dante  and  Petrarch,  throughout  all  Christen¬ 
dom,  in  the  old  world  and  the  new,  the  Virgin 
visited  and  blessed  her  worshipers  with  a  love 
equaling  the  love  of  living  women.  Deity  of  itself 

[ 101  ] 


pto  Ulita  flftonaetica 

cannot  know  sorrow;  but  Mary  had  learned  on 
earth  the  greatest  lesson  of  sorrow. 


Stabat  mater  dolorosa 
Juxta  crucem  lacrymosa, 

Dum  pendebat  filius; 

Cujus  animam  gementem, 

Contristantem  ac  dolentem 
Pertransivit  gladius. 

Sorrow  teaches  compassion,  and  compassion  be¬ 
stows  the  final  grace  on  motherhood.  So  schooled 
and  disciplined,  Mary  became  to  men  what 
Michelangelo  expressed  in  his  Pieta  and  Dante 
in  the  last  canto  of  the  Paradiso.  Unnumbered 
thousands  have  prayed  many  a  prayer  like  that 
of  St.  Francis  de  Sales:  “Ayez  memoire  et  sou- 
venance,  tres  douce  Vierge,  que  vous  etes  ma  M  ere 
et  que  je  suis  votre  enfant,  que  vous  etes  tres 
puissante  etqueje  suis  un  pauvre  petit  etre  vil 
et  faible.  Je  vous  supplie,  ma  tres  douce  Mere, 
que  vous  me  gouverniez  et  defendriez  dans 
toutes  mes  voies  et  actions.”  Little  can  Deity  do 
for  men  if  it  cannot  play  the  mother’s  part.  And, 
of  old,  in  the  scheme  of  things,  this  was  possible; 
good  men  and  sinners  stretched  forth  their  arms 
and  heard  her  voice  upon  the  inward  ear,  beheld 
her  radiance  with  the  inward  eye,  felt  her  pres- 

[ 102  ] 


ATlJe  £>pmtuat  ;|5o  wt  of  J)ey 

ence  shed  round  about,  like  the  coolness  of  a 
summer’s  evening,  such  as  falls  on  close-clipped 
lawns  and  graveled  walks  bordered  by  lilies  and 
the  flowering  plum.  The  sun’s  white  light  is  too 
puissant  for  mortal  eyes;  it  must  be  veiled  in 
clouds,  or  visit  first  the  opaque,  corporeal  world, 
and  only  then,  refracted  and  diminished,  may  it 
come  unharmful,  in  a  thousand  colors  and  hues, 
to  fall  upon  the  tender  retina.  In  like  manner, 
Deity  would  be  unbearable  if  revealed  direct,  so 
it  is  shrouded  in  infinity,  veiled  by  human  doubts 
and  human  ignorance,  and  only  shines  upon  the 
dull  souls  of  men  in  a  refracted  and  diminished 
way,  through  instrumentalities  that  poets  call 
visitants  from  heaven  but  men  call  children, 
wives,  or  mothers,  or  dawns  on  the  imaginative 
mind  in  the  gracious  image  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
or  in  the  idea  of  Christ.  But  the  Virgin’s  image 
and  Christ’s  divinity  have  been  rejected  of  men, 
and  cast  aside,  and  Deity  is  again  shrouded  in 
impenetrable  clouds. 


[  io3  ] 


XVl3! 

(€IJe  JRcafm  of  (CrittlJ 

Wl?at  10  Xrutl 2? — 'pontfii©  pilate 

HE  recluse  paces  the  cloister,  im¬ 
patient  with  iconoclasm,  however 
useful  or  necessary  iconoclasm 
may  be,  since  any  child  or  barba¬ 
rian  can  pull  down;  he  is  inter¬ 
ested  in  building  up  a  spiritual  edifice  in  which 
his  soul  may  dwell  and  be  at  home.  He  marks 
the  magical  power  in  an  idea:  how  it  may  burst 
the  coverings  in  which  it  is  encased,  may  germi¬ 
nate  and  grow,  may  draw  in  life  and  nourishment 
from  human  needs,  or  rather,  how  human  needs 
are  able  to  seize  upon  the  tiny  seeds  of  hope, 
tend  and  watch  over  them,  warm  them  with  de¬ 
sire  and  water  them  with  tears,  breathe  into  them 
the  faculty  of  growth,  and  at  last  create  a  divine 
power  that  in  its  turn,  inspired  by  gratitude,  will 
bless  and  prosper  its  creators  and  servants.  It 
was  after  such  manner  that  the  hermits,  the  saints, 
and  the  sinners  of  the  Middle  Ages  recognized, 
or  created,  the  gracious  image  of  Our  Lady — for 
creation  is  nothing  else  than  by  apprehension  of 
the  mind  to  separate  and  give  intelligible  form 
to  circumambient  forces,  which  unapprehended, 

[  I04  ] 


(£f )c  fiveafm  of  fcvutf} 

undifferentiated,  unformed,  would  remain  mere 
manifestations  of  chaos.  In  this  way  the  rational 
mind  obtains  the  uniformity  of  nature,  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  causality,  and  perhaps  time,  or  even 
space.  The  wondrous  and  strange  part  is  that 
whenever  the  soul  of  the  external  universe  is 
apprehended  or  moulded  by  the  spiritual  needs 
of  man  into  some  spiritual  form,  it  reveals  itself 
as  a  helper.  Reality  lies  neither  in  repetition,  nor 
duration,  nor  the  concordant  testimony  of  mul¬ 
titudes  of  men;  it  is  a  manifestation  of  power, 
and  must  be  measured  by  its  effect  in  human 
experience.  For  the  solitary  the  reality,  la  vraie 
verite ,  exacts  reverence  and  demands  worship; 
and  yet,  if  this  be  so,  reality  must  exist  some¬ 
where  ;  and  where  can  that  abiding-place  be  ?  It  is 
not  in  matter;  it  is  not  in  mere  perceptions,  con¬ 
fined  within  the  human  mind.  Neither  the  flux  of 
motion  within  the  circumscription  of  space,  nor 
the  thinking  mirror  on  which  momentary  images 
are  flashed,  can  be  more  than  a  place  of  transitory 
visitation  for  the  august  spirit  of  reality. 

Our  Solitary,  so  meditating,  recalls  to  mind 
what  Plato,  the  poet,  thought.  There  is  a  region 
far  above  the  perturbation  of  life,  the  wayward¬ 
ness  of  desire,  and  the  dominioffof  the  senses: 
a  realm  of  ideas,  of  universals,  as  philosophers 

[  I05  ] 


fito  Vlita  QfyonaGtka 

call  them,  pure,  everlasting,  immortal,  change¬ 
less.  These  ideas  are  the  archetype  of  what,  to 
men  occupied  with  the  satisfaction  of  earthly  de¬ 
sires  and  appetites,  passes  for  reality.  To  them 
these  pure  spiritual  realities  are  abstractions  from 
the  concrete,  fictions  of  thought,  names  for  the 
traits  and  qualities  of  things,  convenient  sym¬ 
bols  in  practical  reckonings.  “  Universals  are  not 
real,”  they  say ;  and  in  so  saying  make  use  of  the 
very  realities  they  deny.  For  in  order  to  make 
this  denial,  they  must  invoke  the  idea  of  reality, 
the  idea  of  being,  and  the  idea  of  ideas;  and 
the  three  are  universals.  Indeed,  neither  speech 
nor  thought  can  do  without  them.  We  recognize 
something  because  it  embodies  an  idea  that  we 
know;  or  if  we  recognize  a  thing  because  of  its 
similarity  or  relation  to  another  thing,  that  is 
because  the  similarity  or  relation  is  an  idea  that 
we  know.  Our  faculty  of  thought  depends  upon 
this  “pure,  everlasting,  immortal”  realm,  of 
which  a  distinguished  philosopher  says:  “It  is 
unchangeable,  rigid,  exact,  delightful  to  the 
mathematician,  the  logician,  the  builder  of  meta¬ 
physical  systems,  and  all  who  love  perfection 
more  than  life.”  It  is,  indeed,  the  home  of  perfec¬ 
tion;  there  dwell  Wisdom,  Fortitude,  Sobriety, 
and  Justice;  there  dwell  the  attributes  of  Deity. 

[  106  ] 


(IZtfe  Svcafm  of  rtTntf$ 

But  the  quoted  phrase  suggests  too  marked  a 
contrast  between  life  and  perfection.  The  two 
spheres  are  separate,  not  contrasted,  for  in  life 

there  is  always  endeavor  after  perfection,  as  creep- 

* 

ing  babies  try  to  stand  and  walk;  and  though 
life  never  attains,  it  aims  persistently  at  the  goal. 
Here  and  there  some  laborious  disciple  of  Jus¬ 
tice,  T ruth,  or  Beauty  seeks  to  embody  his  vision 
of  that  ideal,  shining  far  off  in  its  incorruptible 
heaven,  within  the  visible,  the  palpable,  the  near 
at  hand.  Or  rather,  should  we  not  say  that  from 
among  the  crowd  of  unilluminated,  every  now 
and  again  Justice,  Truth,  or  Beauty  selects  one 
man  or  another  to  be  her  servant,  entrusts  her 
thyrsus  to  his  hand,  and  bids  him  do  her  will  in 
the  material  world? 

Meditating  upon  Plato,  the  Solitary  advances 
toward  the  chapel.  Beside  the  door,  within  the 
wall  is  a  recess,  and  in  the  recess  an  image  of  the 
Virgin.  He  pauses  again:  — 

Donna,  se’  tanto  grande  e  tanto  vali, 

che,  qual  vuol  grazia  ed  a  te  non  ricorre, 
sua  disianza  vuol  volar  senz’  ali. 

La  tua  benignita  non  pur  soccorre 
a  chi  domanda,  ma  molte  fiate 
liberamente  al  domandar  precorre. 


[  107  ] 


fito  Vlita  (fyonaetica 

Lady,  so  great  art  thou,  so  great  thy  power, 

That  whoso  wishes  grace,  and  seeks  thee  not, 

His  longing  wishes,  without  wings,  to  fly. 

Thy  beneficence  not  only  succoureth 
Him  that  doth  ask,  but  many  times 
Of  its  own  will  anticipates  the  asking. 

Does  this  little  image  in  the  recess  depict  nothing 
more  than  fancy?  Is  not  Our  Lady  real?  In  the 
pure  region  of  ideas  two  are  conspicuous,  maiden¬ 
hood  and  motherhood.  T o  the  Solitary  it  appears 
as  if,  in  the  greater  days  of  creation,  when  spirit¬ 
ual  life  first  appeared  on  earth,  each  of  these  en¬ 
nobling  ideas  was  detached,  differentiated,  sepa¬ 
rated,  from  the  general  mass  of  ideal  chaos,  and 
given  its  specific  aspect  by  some  spiritual  faculty 
(for  so  he  is  wont  to  term  faculties  that  minis¬ 
ter  to  the  soul’s  needs),  as  vibrations  of  sound 
are  differentiated  from  vibratory  chaos  by  the 
nerves  within  the  ear.  Just  as,  to  compare  spir¬ 
itual  things  with  material,  a  sculptor  cuts  out  his 
statue  from  the  enveloping  block.  An  idea  of 
beauty  lies  within  the  cliffside  of  Carrara  waiting 
for  the  eye  of  genius  to  discover  it ;  why  should  not 
an  idea  of  beauty  lie  unseen  within  the  mass  of 
the  ideal,  until  it  is  separated  and  given  shape  and 
name  by  mortal  needs  ?  Does  matter  cease  to  be 
everlasting  because  it  wears  the  corporeal  form  of 

[  ] 


Keafm  of 

Hermes,  or  idea  lose  aught  of  its  immortal  es¬ 
sence  because  it  takes  a  woman’s  shape?  We  are 
wont  to  say  that  in  moments  of  inspiration  the 
mind  creates  beauty  and  discovers  truth.  We 
might  say  equally  well,  the  mind  discovers  beauty 
and  creates  truth.  Phrase  it  as  we  please,  there  is 
some  faculty  within  men  which,  in  moments  of 
high  passion,  fine  frenzy,  or  holy  resolve,  creates 
love,  heroism,  or  the  works  of  genius.  Some  such 
faculty  finds  its  material  in  the  realm  of  ideas. 
That  realm  is  truth;  and  when  some  spiritual 
Prometheus  fetched  down  the  idea  of  mother¬ 
hood  and  the  idea  of  maidenhood,  the  primal 
essence  of  truth  still  remained  in  them. 

And  how  did  they  come  together,  making  one 
out  of  two  ?  Is  their  union  a  sort  of  marriage 
that  incorporates  and  makes  them  one,  or  is  it  a 
unity  of  double  aspect,  existent  from  all  eternity? 
But  however  it  came  about,  there,  in  that  im¬ 
mortal  realm  which  the  poet-seer  Plato  beheld, the 
realm  “dear  to  those  who  love  perfection  more 
than  life,”  the  two  gracious  ideas  met.  Tentative 
meetings  there  had  been  long  before  Plato’s 
time,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  of  Demeter  and 
Kore,  Mother  and  Maid,  but  because  Demeter 
and  Kore  were  not  pure  universals  the  attempt 
failed.  Under  the  wiser  direction  of  Christian 

[  I09  ] 


pto  Vlita  Otyonaetica 

needs  the  two  joined  in  absolute  union  to  create 
the  beneficent  concept  known  on  earth  as  Our 
Lady.  This  combination  may  be  likened  to  a 
chemical  union  of  two  substances  which  require 
also  the  action  of  a  third  to  enable  them  to  drop 
their  individuality  and  become  one  substance. 

However,  the  manner  and  time  of  the  birth  of 
Our  Lady  as  a  divine  idea  is  of  no  consequence; 
the  beginnings  of  things  (whether  the  start  of  in¬ 
dividual  life,  the  origin  of  protoplasm,  or  the  first 
appearance  of  mind)  are  vague,  undetermined, 
and,  for  those  who  judge  of  values  by  what  shall 
be,  rather  than  by  what  has  been,  quite  irrele¬ 
vant.  The  needs  of  mankind  discovered,  or  oc¬ 
casioned,  or,  if  one  may  choose  to  put  it  so, 
wrought  the  miracle,  just  as  they  discovered,  oc¬ 
casioned,  or  wrought  the  ideas  of  Beauty,  Jus¬ 
tice,  and  Truth.  These  needs,  as  metaphysicians 
might  say,  joined  together  two  universals  and 
a  particular.  The  particular  is  the  Mary  of  the 
gospels.  But  historic  fact,  having  served  its  pur¬ 
pose  as  a  dissolvent  of  the  separateness  of  the 
component  ideas,  hung  so  light  and  loose  about 
Our  Lady,  that  she  was  able  to  drop  that  ele¬ 
ment,  to  let  it  melt,  evaporate,  and  disappear, 
leaving  only  pure,  immortal  idea  behind.  This 
new  idea  is  a  pure  universal:  witness  its  copies 

[ 110  ] 


i£0e  Ifteafm  of  fCrutf? 

here  below- — Notre-Dame  de  Paris,  de  Rheims, 
de  Chartres,  de  Lourdes,  Our  Lady  of  West¬ 
minster,  of  Durham,  Die  Jungfrau  of  Aachen  or 
Munich,  la  Madonna  di  Siena,  di  Firenze,  del 
Carmine,  Mater  Dolorosa,  Mater  Amabilis,  and 
thousands  more. 

Our  Lady — and  to  each  lover  she  presents  an 
individual  aspect — lives  in  the  abode  of  ideas, 
and  her  power,  like  all  other  manifestations  of 
power,  depends  upon  the  relation  between  her 
and  her  worshiper;  she  will  influence  his  life  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  sensitiveness  and  his  ability,  just 
as  a  love  of  Justice  or  a  passion  for  Beauty  may 
move  a  man  to  do  acts  of  justice  or  embody  an 
image  of  beauty.  No  force  can  produce  an  effect 
unless  the  object  it  works  upon  is  sensitive  to 
its  push  and  incidence.  The  reason  for  denying 
to  her  the  possession  of  reality  seems  to  be 
that  when  men  began  to  become  more  and  more 
interested  in  material  things,  more  and  more 
steeped  in  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  this  world, 
then  her  image  grew  faint,  and  her  power  also, 
and  that,  when  all  interest  in  her  departed,  then 
she,  too,  as  if  she  had  been  but  the  shadow  of 
faith,  vanished  altogether.  So  might  we  think 
that  light  is  unreal  when  we  cease  to  see  it  be¬ 
cause  there  is  no  object  present  to  intercept  and 

[ 111  ] 


pto  Vlita  iS^oitaedca 

reflect  it;  or  that  our  neighbor,  who  goes  aboard 
a  ship  and  sails  away,  has  passed  into  nothing¬ 
ness;  or  that  some  art  of  color  in  glass  or  con¬ 
tour  in  pottery  has  been  annihilated  because  it 
has  been  forgotten.  And,  we  may  ask,  what  would 
this  seeming  solid  be,  which  we  call  the  earth, 
this  evoker  of  sensations,  this  object  of  specu¬ 
lations,  what  would  become  of  it,  if  mind  should 
perish?  Is  it  more  permanent,  more  real,  more 
true,  than  an  idea?  And  if  we  anticipate  that  time 
when  this  fair  earth  shall  have  become  cold  and 
dry,  all  verdure  gone,  the  glorious  oceans,  cir¬ 
cling  round  the  globe,  hardly  to  be  traced  in 
deeps  and  hollows,  and  all  thinking  things  de¬ 
parted,  and  with  them  all  memory,  all  capacity 
for  thought  departed  too  —  shall  Beauty  and  Jus¬ 
tice  and  Truth  likewise  perish?  By  no  means. 
In  their  pure,  immortal,  everlasting,  unchange¬ 
able  realm  they  will  continue  as  before,  eternal 
and  uncorrupted,  ready  to  inspire  the  heart  of 
any  new-born  thinking  creature  that  may  come 
to  life  with  a  passion  to  reproduce  once  more 
fair  copies  of  ideal  things  in  the  visible  and  the 
tangible.  And  if  humanity  shall  reappear  with 
sex,  with  mother  and  children,  Our  Lady  also 
will  be  there,  with  her  Child  in  her  arms,  eternal 
in  her  maidenhood,  eternal  in  her  motherhood, 

[ 112  ] 


(IZffe  IReafm  of  dZvutf} 

with  the  love  light  in  her  eye,  and  the  smile  on 
her  lips,  gracious  in  her  divine  assurance  that 
purity  is  a  gleam  from  on  high,  and  that  a  child 
is  the  revelation  of  God.  Surely  she  will  be  there 
to  bless  any  thinking  thing  in  human  form.  She 
may,  in  her  remote  loneliness,  have  lost  the 
memory  of  the  Hebrew  maiden  and  have  forgot¬ 
ten  that  her  name  is  Mary;  but  new  creatures  in 
human  form  will  kneel,  in  conscious  or  uncon¬ 
scious  prayer,  to  the  eternal  ideas  of  maidenhood 
and  motherhood,  and  again  picture  them  in  the 
most  beautiful  of  human  images. 

Or,  if  this  gracious  image  shares  with  speech 
and  thought  our  human  powerlessness  to  ex¬ 
press  any  aspect  of  truth,  and  proves  but  one 
more  ill-chosen  symbol,  still  man  must  not  weary 
in  his  endeavor  to  consecrate  the  power  of  sex 
to  spiritual  uses;  for  if  it  be  humanly  possible  to 
believe  in  a  revelation  of  God,  our  best  hope  lies 
in  the  sanctification  of  this  mysterious  duality. 
In  the  realm  of  truth  ail  is  possible.  Who  does 
not,  at  least  in  his  blessed  moments,  hear  in  his 
heart  the  song  of  the  Mystical  Chorus? 

Alles  Vergangliche 
1st  nur  ein  Gleichniss; 

Das  Unzulangliche 
Hier  wird’s  Ereigniss; 

[  ”3  ] 


}0ro  ill ita  &}ona$tica 

Das  Unbeschreibliche, 
Hier  ist  es  gethan; 

Das  Ewig-Weibliche 
Zieht  uns  hinan. 


All  that  is  corruptible  is  but  a  symbol;  that 
which  on  earth  is  unattainable  takes  corporeal 
form  in  this  realm  of  Truth;  and  what  is  be¬ 
yond  language  there  steps  forth  a  fact;  the  Holy 
Spirit  that  manifests  itself  in  woman  lifts  man  to 
Reality. 


[  ”4  ] 


XV13I3I 

M>eCff<£ivamination 

£qo  eum  lujc  mundi:  qut  sequitur  me  non  ambulat  in  tenebrte, 

acd  ljabebit  lumen  vtt«e. 

3ot?n,  viii :  12 

S  our  Solitary  constitutes  the  con¬ 
gregation  of  his  monastery,  the 
hour  of  vespers  depends  upon 
his  mood.  His  meditations  have 
aroused  a  restlessness  which  urges 
e  slips  back  the  bolt  of  the  great 
gate  and  walks  out  of  the  cloistered  precincts, 
across  the  neighboring  fields,  through  pastures 
where  browsing  cows  begin  to  turn  their  heads 
homeward,  and  up  a  footpath  into  the  woods, 
with  a  purpose  to  reach  the  hilltop  and  win  a 
prospect  of  the  setting  sun.  The  shadows  fall 
longer  and  longer,  and  the  cool  of  twilight  sends 
emissaries  before.  Once  he  is  well  in  the  woods, 
the  little  voices  of  flora  and  fauna,  heedless  of 
his  presence,  chatter  round  about  him.  Leaves 
rustle,  boughs  creak,  frogs  sing,  the  white- 
throated  sparrow  pipes  its  melancholy  dactyls, 
and  crows  caw  clamorously.  But  more  clear  and 
definite  than  these  exterior  sounds,  he  hears  a 
voice.  There  is  no  one  on  the  mountainside  but 

[  ”5  ] 


fito  Vlita  &}onaetica 

himself,  and  the  voice  is  obviously  the  articula¬ 
tion  of  his  own  thoughts;  nevertheless,  so  near 
does  it  sound  that  he  involuntarily  pauses  and 
looks  about  for  the  speaker. 

Voice :  Why  do  you  try  to  deceive  yourself?  Why 
do  you  play  at  an  imaginary  game? 

The  Solitary  stops  to  think;  his  only  wish  is  to 
answer  truthfully,  but  it  is  so  hard  to  catch  the 
shifting  turns  of  thought  and  put  them  into 
words.  The  absurd  similes  that  come  into  his 
mind  annoy  him,  —  iEneas  clasping  Creusa, 
Achilles  unable  to  overtake  the  tortoise,  chase 
of  a  greased  pig,  —  but  their  very  mockery  of 
his  attempt  to  catch  his  thought  seems  to  fur¬ 
nish  him  with  an  excuse. 

Solitary :  I  try  to  think  the  truth;  but  truth  is 
hard  to  think. 

Voice:  Every  one  can  say  what  he  believes. 

Solitary:  No;  the  man  who  can  say  definitely  what 
he  believes  is  not  thinking.  Belief  concerning 
the  deep  things  of  life  is  a  living  thing;  and 
every  element  in  it  is  forever  shifting;  a  pre¬ 
sentment  of  it  as  fixed  and  static  is  necessarily 
false.  If  a  man  is  able  to  define  his  creed  in  rigid 
articles,  it  is  because  all  his  feelings  have  been 

[ 116  ] 


J>effv  (Semination 

cast  into  prepared  categories,  and  his  recital  will 
read  like  the  advertisements  of  an  auctioneer. 
His  tenets  will  be  abstracts,  condensations,  epit¬ 
omes,  generalizations.  Belief  is  motion,  a  breath¬ 
ing,  palpitating,  living  thing;  but  an  articulate 
creed  consists  of  frozen  slices  of  thought,  real 
or  fancied,  ready  for  display  in  a  front  window. 

Voice:  You  seek  excuses.  I  am  not  asking  for 
delicate  discriminations  of  thought.  Your  creed 
remains  in  substance  the  same  from  day  to  day, 
living  though  it  be,  just  as  your  body  retains  its 
identity,  although  that  changes  too.  Give  over 
your  evasions  and  fencings. 

Solitary :  I  will  try. 

Voice:  You  profess  to  reject  the  teachings  of 
common  sense;  but  it  is  your  moral  unwilling¬ 
ness  to  face  facts  that  seeks  refuge  in  skepticism. 
Some  minds,  perhaps,  find  it  possible'  to  disbe¬ 
lieve  in  the  assertions  of  common  sense;  but  are 
you,  if  put  upon  your  honor,  one  of  them  ?  Your 
living,  your  daily  routine,  your  every  act  is  an 
acceptance  of  its  doctrines.  Even  your  professed 
skepticism  of  reason  itself  is  the  result  of  a  chain 
of  reasoning.  Answer  me  truthfully.  Do  you  not 
really  accept  this  common-sense,  matter-of-fact, 
physical  world  that  your  senses  report? 

[  J17  ] 


pto  Vlita  Qftonaetka 

Solitary:  I  do  not.  Nothing  is  more  sure  than  that 
there  is  no  evidence  of  any  common  property 
shared  by  a  material  world  and  the  mental  inter¬ 
pretations  of  it. 

Voice :  Well,  if  you  object  to  the  word  material , 
call  it  an  ideal  world,  mental  stuff,  the  substance 
of  consciousness,  the  mind  of  God,  or  whatever 
you  choose;  my  question  is,  Do  you  not  accept 
a  fundamental  distinction  between  images,  or 
ideas,  or  feelings,  that  we  may  call  sensuous,  and 
the  imagery  of  a  dream  or  of  your  imagination  — 
a  distinction  which  in  common  speech  we  desig¬ 
nate  by  the  adjectives  real  and  imaginary  ? 

Solitary :  I  cannot  tell.  It  may  be  that  my  diffi¬ 
culty  lies  here,  similar  to  that  which  I  expressed 
in  regard  to  the  formulation  of  a  creed.  I  usu¬ 
ally  think  of  your  common-sense  world  as  being 
a  world  that  science  can  deal  with,  that  is,  as 
static,  cut  up  into  forms  and  shapes  by  the  pro¬ 
cesses  of  perception  and  memory,  whereas  I  be¬ 
lieve  reality  is  a  continuous  flux,  which,  quicker 
than  you  can  say  of  it,  “  This  is  so,”  is  something 
else.  The  distinction  you  postulate  as  a  test  of 
reality  has  no  meaning  for  me.  My  test  is  quite 
other  than  that.  To  my  mind  all  thoughts,  ideas, 
feelings,  or  dreams  are  equally  real,  and  the  one 

[  ”8  ] 


S>etf//<B^amination 

important  difference  between  them  lies  in  the  de¬ 
gree  of  value  that  they  severally  possess  for  me. 

Voice :  But  you  do  acknowledge  an  uncontrolla¬ 
ble  quality  about  the  actual  present  that  makes 
it  of  a  different  kind  from  the  pictures  of  your 
imagination,  and  different,  too,  from  the  imagery 
in  your  memory  ? 

Solitary :  How  can  I  tell?  If  uncontrollability  is 
a  proof  of  reality,  all  the  images  in  dreams  or 
delirium  are  certainly  real.  If  my  will  appears  to 
control  the  images  in  my  imagination,  what  war¬ 
rant  have  I  that  my  will  is  not  as  uncontrollable 
by  me  as  your  physical  reality?  And  then  I  shall 
have  at  one  remove  the  same  evidence  of  their 
reality  that  you  rely  upon  for  proof  of  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  a  material  world. 

Voice:  But  the  physical  world  persists,  and  re¬ 
appears  each  time  you  turn  to  it. 

Solitary :  Persistence  and  repetition  are  no  proofs 
at  all ;  for  if  one  appearance  of  an  image  has  no 
element  of  reality,  ten  thousand  repetitions  will 
not  corroborate  it. 

Voice:  Remember  that  by  your  skepticism  you 
are  not  raising  your  phantasies  to  the  level  of 
reality,  but  dissolving  reality  into  a  world  of 
dreams. 


[  ”9  ] 


fit o  Hi ita  &}onaetica 

Solitary :  I  admit  a  difference  between  what  you 
call  perceptions  and  what  you  call  ideas;  only  I 
do  not  concede  that  this  is  a  difference  of  reality. 

Voice :  All  I  ask  is  for  you  honestly  to  recognize 
that  the  difference  is  fundamental — the  differ¬ 
ence,  let  us  say,  between  the  Beatrice  Portinari 
who  married  Messer  Simone  de’ Bardi  and  the 
Beatrice  of  the  Divine  Comedy. 

Solitary:  I  do. 

Voice :  Then,  to  take  a  further  instance,  Our  Lady 
is  a  whimsy  of  your  imagination,  and  it  is  child¬ 
ish  to  pretend  that  she  has  any  power  of  any  kind 
other  than  that  which  she  receives  from  your 
fancy. 

Solitary :  My  fancy  did  not  create  her.  I  found 
her.  She  manifests  herself  to  different  men  under 
different  forms.  Her  manifestation  to  me  is  the 
most  real  of  my  experiences.  She  ministers  to  my 
needs.  She  comes  with  me  upon  my  walks.  She 
kneels  beside  me  at  my  prayers.  I  see  with  in¬ 
ward  eyes  her  smile;  with  inward  ears  I  hear  her 
voice;  her  counsels,  her  advocacy,  her  teachings 
do  not  vary  with  my  moods.  What  she  is,  I  can¬ 
not  say,  but  real  with  some  kind  of  existence. 

Voice :  Then  all  the  fancies  of  lunatics  are  real. 

[ 120  ] 


3etf {(Examination 

Solitary:  Oh!  You  drive  me  round  and  round  this 
eternal  circle :  perceptions,  memories,  fancies.  A 
perception  is  as  real  as  the  thing  perceived;  a 
memory  is  as  real  as  a  perception;  a  fancy  in  the 
imagination  is  real,  too,  furnished  with  powers 
and  influences  of  greater  authority  than  any  real¬ 
ity  which  does  not  affect  the  mind. 

Voice :  You  are  trying  to  create  gods,  as  the  hea¬ 
then  do,  out  of  any  materials  that  lie  ready  to 
your  hand. 

Solitary:  You  are  the  Spirit  that  denies,  and  life 
is  one  eternal  affirmation. 

The  Solitary  paused;  no  voice  answered.  He  lis¬ 
tened,  but  heard  nothing  but  the  rustle  of  leaves, 
and  the  murmurous  hum  of  insects.  To  his  sur¬ 
prise  he  suddenly  became  conscious  that  he  was 
walking  at  high  speed,  and  that  his  body  was  all 
in  a  perspiration.  He  reached  an  open  field  on 
the  crest  of  the  hill,  stopped,  and  looked  about. 
The  church  bell  in  the  far  village  was  ringing  the 
Angelus.  The  sun  had  sunk  behind  the  darken¬ 
ing  mass  of  the  western  mountains,  but  the  bay 
still  flushed  with  the  thrill  of  color  as  it  faded 
away.  The  blue  of  heaven  deepened,  rising  higher 
and  higher,  as  it  seemed,  into  the  farthest  re- 

[ 121  ] 


pto  Vlita  ftfonaetica 

cesses  of  space,  and  also  descending  nearer  and 
nearer.  Soon  the  long  shadow  of  the  mountain 
rim  clasped  the  whole  landscape  in  its  embrace, 
except  for  one  fair  field  upon  a  hillside  across  the 
bay,  which  still  shone  bright  as  the  last  lingering 
rays  of  the  setting  sun  kissed  it  good-night.The 
Solitary  murmured,  involuntarily:  “The  Lord 
is  in  his  holy  temple,  let  the  whole  earth  keep 
silence  before  him.”  He  smiled  to  himself,  and 
stood  for  a  time  bareheaded.  His  feelings  shook 
themselves  free  from  body  and  bodily  sense.  It 
seemed  as  if  his  individual  existence  had  lost  it¬ 
self  in  an  innumerable  crowd  of  other  existences, 
all  striving,  with  one  accord,  to  chant  the  same 
litany  —  as  once,  he  remembered,  he  had  joined 
in  the  Hallelujah  Chorus  in  Carnegie  Hall.  He 
looked  up  at  the  stars,  and  shivered  with  a  sud¬ 
den  cold,  of  terror  tempered  by  defiance,  at  their 
inhuman  immensity;  he  shouted,  Hallelujah! 
and  with  a  warm  gush  of  gratitude  for  the  kindly 
earth  and  the  presence  of  familiar  things,  he  hur¬ 
ried  homeward. 


[ 122  ] 


XW3I3I3I 

Oratory 

ID?  1?OU0C  0l?all  be  called  tl?c  Ijouae  of  pra? er. 

0t.  2Dattl?ew,  ppi:  13 

ANY  people  experience  little 
quickening  of  the  spirit  in  a 
church.  They  prefer  to  worship 
—  if  that  word  will  cover  a  state 
of  mind  unexpressed  in  outward 
acts — in  “  a  building  of  God,  an  house  not  made 
with  hands,”  or,  as  Carlyle  says,  “in  the  great 
temple  of  Eternity,”  or  in  woods,  or  along  the 
shore  of  ocean,  since  to  the  devout,  trees  and 
waves  are  fellow  worshipers.  But  most  seekers 
find  comfort,  a  sense  of  far-reaching  fellowship, 
a  help  for  the  concentration  of  thought,  a  lad¬ 
der  for  contemplation  to  climb  up  by  and  to 
forget  that  by  which  it  climbed,  in  the  pious 
instruments  devised  by  men  to  express  their 
sentiments,  for  worship  and  praise  —  a  church, 
printed  words  of  prayer,  the  chords  of  Palestrina, 
or  pictured  saints  in  marble  and  fresco.  In  a 
church  the  seeker  feels  that  he  is  in  high  com¬ 
munion;  the  spot  has  been  sanctified  by  tears 
and  sobs,  repentance,  agony,  and  holy  vows, 
by  hopes  of  rising  up  from  falls,  of  amendment 

[  I23  ] 


pto  Vlita  (fyonaetica 

and  victory,  of  belief  in  the  presence  of  God  and 
of  rejoicing  angels.  In  a  retreat,  therefore,  it  is 
the  custom  to  go  to  some  church  or  chapel  to 
pray. 

One  such  oratory  I  remember.  It  was  con¬ 
structed  after  the  old  Romanesque  manner,  and 
very  small.  A  few  candles  burned  before  the  altar. 
At  the  back,  on  the  concave  ceiling  of  the  little 
apse,  the  Byzantine  image  of  God  the  Son  looked 
down  in  imperial  severity.  The  tarnished  gold 
of  the  enamel  flickered  with  the  flickering  of  the 
candles.  A  faint  smell  of  incense  filled  the  little 
space,  and  a  tenuous  vapor  imparted  a  vague 
mystery  to  the  altar,  the  outline  of  the  windows, 
and  the  barrel-vaulted  ceiling  which,  were  a  man 
to  stand  on  a  bench,  he  could  touch  with  out¬ 
stretched  hand.  All  was  dim,  unintellectual,  irra¬ 
tional,  mystical,  mediaeval.  Is  there  not  here,  I 
thought,  some  likeness  to  the  soul,  struggling 
upward,  in  the  little,  candlelit,  house  of  bodily 
life,  with  no  better  symbols  of  spiritual  life  than 
smoky  images  ?  A  worshiper  was  there.  He  knelt 
down  and  read  prayers  from  his  breviary  by  the 
poor  light  of  the  candles:  — 


Si  cut  enim  non  est  a  came  sed  super  carnem ,  quod 
carnem  facit  vivere:  Sic  non  est  ab  homine ,  sed  super 


[  I24  ] 


Oratory 

hominem ,  quod  hominem  facit  beate  vivere .  Quocirca 
ut  vita  carnis  anima  est ,  //»  beata  vita  hominis  Dens 
est. 

For,  as  that  which  giveth  life  to  the  flesh  is  not 
from  the  flesh  but  above  the  flesh,  so  that  which 
giveth  spiritual  life  to  man  is  not  from  man,  but 
above  man.  Wherefore,  as  the  life  of  the  flesh  is 
the  soul,  so  the  spiritual  life  of  man.  is  God. 

Miserere  Domine! 

Late  have  I  loved  Thee,  O  Thou  Eternal  Truth 
and  Goodness!  late  have  I  sought  Thee,  my 
Father!  But  Thou  didst  seek  me,  and  when  Thou 
shinedst  forth  upon  me,  then  I  knew  Thee  and 
learned  to  love  Thee.  I  thank  Thee,  O  my  Light, 
that  Thou  didst  thus  shine  upon  me;  that  Thou 
didst  teach  my  soul  what  Thou  wouldst  be  to 
me,  and  didst  incline  thy  face  in  pity  upon  me. 
Thou,  Lord,  hast  become  my  Hope,  my  Com¬ 
fort,  my  Strength,  my  All. 

Miserere  Domine! 

Almighty  God,  Father  of  mercies,  be  pleased  to 
work  in  me  what  Thou  hast  commanded  should 
be  in  me.  Give  me,  O  Lord,  the  grace  of  an 
earnest  sorrow. 

Miserere  Domine  ! 

[  I25  ] 


fivo  Vlita  (fyonaetica 

By  thy  holy  love  and  fear,  keep  me  from  sins 

of  temper  and  of  the  tongue. 

Miserere  Domine! 

O  Lord,  my  God,  Light  of  those  that  see,  and 

strength  of  the  strong;  hearken  unto  my  soul, 

and  hear  it  crying  out  of  the  depths. 

Miserere  Domine  ! 

O  donna  in  cui  la  mia  speranza  vige, 
e  che  soffristi  per  la  mia  salute 

in  Inferno  lasciar  le  tue  vestige; 

•  ••••••• 

Tu  m’  hai  di  servo  tratto  a  libertate 
per  tutte  quelle  vie,  per  tutti  i  modi, 
che  di  cio  fare  avei  la  potestate. 

La  tua  magnificenza  in  me  custodi 
si,  che  I’  anima  mia,  che  fatta  hai  sana, 
piacente  a  te  dal  corpo  si  disnodi. 

O  Lady,  in  whom  my  hope  finds  strength, 
Who  for  my  soul’s  health  did  endure 
In  Hell  to  leave  thy  footprints; 

•  ••••••• 

Thou  from  my  slavish  state  to  liberty 

Hast  drawn  me  up,  by  all  the  paths,  by  all 
The  ways  that  thou  hadst  power  to  do; 


[ 126  3 


(€(je  ©rafoty 

Let  thy  high  majesty  keep  watch  on  me. 

So  that  my  spirit,  which  thou  hast  made  whole, 
Dear  in  thy  sight,  may  shuffle  off  this  clay. 

Miserere  Domine! 

Tout  l’univers  est  plein  de  sa  magnificence: 
Qu’on  adore  ce  Dieu,  qu’on  l’invoque  a  jamais! 
II  nous  donne  ses  lois,  il  se  donne  lui-meme: 
Pour  tant  de  biens,  il  commande  qu’on  l’aime. 

Miserere  'Domine! 

Bow  down  thine  ear,  O  Lord,  hear  me:  for  I  am 
poor  and  needy.  Preserve  my  soul :  O  thou  my 
God,  save  thy  servant  that  trusteth  in  thee.  Be 
merciful  unto  me,  O  Lord:  for  I  cry  unto  thee 
daily.  Rejoice  the  soul  of  thy  servant;  for  unto 
thee,  O  Lord,  do  I  lift  up  my  soul.  For  thou, 
Lord,  art  good,  and  ready  to  forgive ;  and  plen¬ 
teous  in  mercy  unto  all  them  that  call  upon  thee. 
Give  ear,  O  Lord,  unto  my  prayer;  and  attend 
to  the  voice  of  my  supplications. 

Miserere  Domine ! 

O  Lord  God  of  my  salvation.  I  have  cried  day 
and  night  before  thee :  Let  my  prayer  come  be¬ 
fore  thee:  incline  thine  ear  unto  my  cry;  for  my 
soul  is  full  of  troubles ;  and  my  life  draweth  nigh 
unto  the  grave. 

Miserere  Domine! 

[  I27  ] 


pto  Vlita  ftyonaetica 

Hear  my  prayer,  O  Lord,  and  let  my  cry  come 
unto  thee.  Hide  not  thy  face  from  me  in  the  day 
when  I  am  in  trouble;  incline  thine  ear  unto  me; 
in  the  day  when  I  call  answer  me  speedily.  For 
my  days  are  consumed  like  smoke,  and  my  bones 
are  burned  as  a  hearth.  My  heart  is  smitten  and 
withered  like  grass;  I  have  eaten  ashes  like  bread, 
and  mingled  my  drink  with  weeping. 

Miserere  Domine! 

Omnipotens  sempiterne  Deusy  infirmitatem  nostram 
propitius  respice ,  atque  ad  protegendum  nos  dexter  am 
tua  majestatis  extende. 

Almighty,  everlasting  God,  look  with  favor  upon 
our  weakness,  and  stretch  forth  the  right  hand 
of  thy  majesty  to  guard  us. 

Miserere  Domine! 

Prasta,  quasumus^  omnipotens  Deus,  ut  semper  ra- 
tionabilia  meditantes ,  qua  tibi  sunt  placita  et  dictis 
exequamur  et  factis. 

Grant,  we  beseech  Thee,  O  Almighty  God,  that 
always  thinking  upon  the  things  that  are  right, 
we  may  fulfil  thy  commandments  both  in  word 
and  deed. 

Miserere  Domine! 


[  1*8  ] 


©raforp 

Benedicite  omnia  opera  Domini  Domino:  laudate  et 
superexaltate  eum  in  specula. 

O  all  ye  Works  of  the  Lord,  bless  ye  the  Lord; 
praise  Him  and  magnify  Him  for  ever ! 

Prayer  does  not  stand  high  in  the  World’s  es¬ 
teem.  Pupils  of  science  judge  it  a  vain  and  foolish 
superstition.  They  may  be  quite  right.  But  if  there 
is  no  avail  in  prayer,  neither  is  there  in  reason, 
in  the  cautious  steps  of  the  human  intelligence 
from  premises  to  conclusion;  for  denial  of  all 
value  to  prayer  can  only  be  on  the  assumption 
of  determinism.  If  it  merely  rest  on  the  denial 
of  Deity,  of  a  hearer,  or  of  any  power  outside  of 
man  to  alter  the  course  of  events,  it  is  irrelevant ; 
for  a  denial,  to  be  of  avail,  must  exclude  the  ef¬ 
fect  of  prayer  upon  a  man’s  self.  To  the  seeker 
in  his  retreat,  prayer  is  an  exercise  to  strengthen 
the  spirit,  an  unfolding  of  the  soul’s  wings  on 
a  hoped-for  flight,  such  as  a  skylark  may  take 
through  cloud  into  sunshine  beyond  —  a  means 
of  restoring  equilibrium  to  the  soul  after  tossing 
to  and  fro  day  by  day  in  the  rough  crossings 
between  sleep  and  sleep:  the  acquisition  of  in- 
differency  to  the  pulls  and  tugs  of  appetite  and 
pride,  of  impartiality  between  self  and  neigh¬ 
bor,  of  a  balance  that  will  weigh  differences  of 

[  I29  ] 


fito  Ulita  tiftonaetica 

nationality,  of  class  or  creed;  and  an  attainment 
of  the  self-respect,  the  humility,  of  one  who  feels 
that  even  he  may  serve  the  Lord,  his  God. 


[  *3°  ] 


X3JX 

£>pititua(  (Bivetcieee 

•piurcd  repenuntur  contemplationcm  dc^iderarc,  oed  qua:  ad  earn 
requtruntur,  non  student  epercere . 

Xtyomae  a  ■Remp<0 

T  is  sometimes  thought,  by  those 
who  pay  little  heed  to  the  matter, 
that  the  seeker  after  spiritual 
values  leads  an  easy,  effortless  life, 
waiting  for  inspiration  or  a  vision. 
On  the  contrary,  in  spiritual  life  as  elsewhere, 
rewards  are  proportioned  to  labor,  self-denial, 
and  effort.  It  is  not  the  idler,  nor  the  self-indul¬ 
gent  man,  that  can  withdraw  his  attention  from 
the  thousand  glittering  distractions  which  temp¬ 
tation  spreads  around,  and  fix  his  gaze  steadfastly 
upward.  The  teachers  of  spiritual  things,  well 
knowing  from  their  own  experience  the  difficulties 
in  the  way,  have  drawn  up  a  series  of  counsels  to 
help  the  novice.  Just  as  the  student  pursuing  any 
discipline  in  a  university,  or  an  athlete  bent  upon 
becoming  an  oarsman  or  a  football  player,  is  di¬ 
rected  and  guided,  so  the  student  who  wishes  to 
learn  what  other  men  have  believed  to  be  spir¬ 
itual  knowledge,  and  to  see  what  others  have  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  spiritual  light,  will  follow  the  coun- 

[  I3I  ] 


fito  Wta  (fyonaetica 

sels  of  the  masters  in  his  subject.  No  doubt  there 
are  many  roads,  and  each  pilgrim  must  choose 
his  own  according  to  his  native  bent  and  acquired 
inclinations;  but  a  retreat  presents  a  definite  phi¬ 
losophy  of  conduct,  and  for  the  solitary  who  is 
honest  in  his  search,  the  tabulated  and  codified 
counsels  of  those  that  have  attained  should  by  no 
means  be  neglected.  According  to  the  practice 
of  the  main  theological  and  ecclesiastical  Chris¬ 
tian  tradition,  these  counsels  lay  down  a  plan  of 
spiritual  exercises  for  daily  use  during  the  period 
of  the  solitary’s  retreat  or  of  his  spiritual  noviti¬ 
ate.  These  counsels  are  somewhat  after  this  fash¬ 
ion.  Let  the  novice  banish  all  wandering  fancies, 
his  mind  following  a  certain  train  of  thought, 
very  much  as  if  he  were  attending  service  in  a 
metaphysical  oratory  within  his  own  soul.  There 
is  nothing  out  of  the  usual  way  in  this:  all  reli¬ 
gious  sects  and  societies,  whether  for  spiritual, 
ethical,  or  mental  health,  have  their  liturgical 
offices  for  prayer  and  meditation,  in  order  to 
stimulate  and  guide  spiritual  effort. 

The  novice  begins  by  coming,  as  it  were,  to  spirit¬ 
ual  attention.  Adsum,  Domine.  Then,  his  thoughts 
collected,  he  utters  some  preparatory  prayer:  — 

Help  me,  O  Thou  whom  I  blindly  seek,  to  lay 

[  *32  ] 


J>f>iri tuaC  (B^etcieee 

aside  whatever  impulses  and  appetites  of  the 
World  still  cling  to  me:  all  envy  of  other  men, 
all  desire  of  Worldly  success,  all  false  doctrine 
of  temporal  good  or  of  the  World’s  satisfaction, 
all  pride,  all  ill-will  and  self-deception,  all  hard¬ 
ness  of  heart,  all  vulgarity  and  self-love. 

Next,  preliminary  to  meditation,  some  phrase  or 
ejaculation  is  to  be  taken  from  an  approved  poet 
or  spiritual  writer:  — 

Fili,  Ego  Dominus ,  confortans  in  die  tribulationis ; 
Venias  ad  me,  cum  tibi  non  fuerit  bene. 

My  son,  it  is  I,  the  Lord,  ready  to  comfort  in  the 
day  of  tribulation;  Come  to  me  when  thou  art 
in  trouble. 


Subject  of  Meditation : 

An  episode  taken  from  the  life  of  Christ,  or 
whomever  the  novice  regards  as  the  loftiest  spir¬ 
itual  teacher: — 

Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Mary.  She  turned  herself 
and  saith  unto  him,  Rabboni;  which  is  to  say. 
Master.  Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Touch  me  not;  for 
I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  my  Father:  but  go  to 
my  brethren,  and  say  unto  them,  I  ascend  unto 
my  Father,  and  your  Father;  and  to  my  God  and 
your  God. 


[  1 33  ] 


|3to  Vlita  Qftonaetica 

The  novice  is  then  directed  to  conjure  up  the 
scene  before  his  mind’s  eye,  as  if  he  were  recall¬ 
ing  visual  images  that  he  had  himself  beheld. 


The  Episode ,  according  to  the  letter : 

Imagine  yourself  present.  There  before  you 
kneels  the  woman  worshiping  and  the  Master 
stands  denying.  Imagine  herwoman’s  hands  out¬ 
stretched  in  supplication;  imagine  the  Master’s 
wounded  feet  that  have  trod  the  Syrian  roads, 
the  shores  of  Galilee,  the  regions  round  about 
Jerusalem,  and  at  last  the  hard  road  up  the  hill 
of  Golgotha.  Imagine  that  you  hear  Mary’s  sin¬ 
gle  word,  and  the  Master’s  answering  voice. 


The  Episode ,  according  to  the  Spirit: 

Human  frailty  kneels  before  the  miraculous  ap¬ 
pearance  of  divine  love.  You  are  typified  by 
Mary.  Imagine  yourself  as  filled  with  a  passion¬ 
ate  love  of  the  Highest,  and,  in  sudden  forget¬ 
fulness  of  the  truth  that  the  Highest  cannot  be 
touched  except  after  heroic  self-mastery  or  self- 
abandonment,  perhaps  after  suffering  even  unto 
death — you  hope  to  attain  to  a  knowledge  and 
love  of  God  by  the  mere  outstretching  of  your 
hands.  Holiness  is  out  of  a  sinner’s  reach.  You 
are  permitted  to  behold  the  marks  of  the  suf- 

[  *34  ] 


Jipirituaf  (Syetcieee 

ferings  that  have  enabled  Holiness  to  realize  it¬ 
self,  in  order  that  you  shall  bear  witness  to  your 
brethren  that  Holiness  is  of  God,  and  that  through 
holiness  the  human  may  hope  at  last  to  touch  the 
Divine. 

Meditation : 

Life  of  my  life,  I  shall  ever  try  to  keep  my  body 
pure,  knowing  that  thy  living  touch  is  upon  all 
my  limbs. 

I  shall  ever  try  to  keep  all  untruths  out  from 
my  thoughts,  knowing  that  thou  art  that  truth 
which  has  kindled  the  light  of  reason  in  my  mind. 

I  shall  ever  try  to  drive  all  evils  away  from  my 
heart  and  keep  my  love  in  flower,  knowing  that 
thou  hast  thy  seat  in  the  inmost  shrine  of  my 
heart. 

And  it  shall  be  my  endeavor  to  reveal  thee  in 
my  actions,  knowing  it  is  thy  power  gives  me 
strength  to  act. 

Prayer: 

Grant  me,  O  Thou  whom  I  seek,  the  grace  to 
know  what  men  can  know  of  thy  truth,  and  the 
will  to  seek  after  thy  Holy  Spirit. 

Meditative  sequences : 

taken  from  the  Bible,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  or  any 
sacred  poet  or  writer  in  some  way  connected  with 

[  *35  ] 


pto  l Uta  Qftonaetica 

the  main  subject  of  meditation.  For  instance,  the 
cross  as  symbol  of  purification  through  suffer¬ 
ing:— 

He  that  taketh  not  his  cross,  and  followeth 
after  me,  is  not  worthy  of  me. 

If  thou  bearest  the  cross  willingly,  it  will  bear 
thee  and  bring  thee  to  thy  wished-for  end. 

If  thou  bearest  it  unwillingly,  thou  makest  it 
a  burden,  and  still  thou  must  bear  it. 

Dost  thou  think  thou  canst  escape  that  which 
no  mortal  could  ever  avoid?  What  saint  was  ever 
in  the  world  that  did  not  bear  his  cross  and  trib¬ 
ulation? 

Needs  must  that  Christ  suffered;  and  how  is 
it  that  thou  wilt  seek  a  way  other  than  this  royal 
road,  which  is  the  way  of  the  holy  cross? 

The  life  of  Christ  was  a  cross  and  a  martyr¬ 
dom;  and  dost  thou  seek  for  thyself  rest  and  joy? 

Err  as  ^  Erras ,  si  aliud  qu^eris,  quarn  pati  tribula- 
tiones:  quia  tota  ista  vita  mortalisy  plena  est  miseriis , 
et  circumsignata  crucibus. 

You  go  astray,  astray,  if  you  seek  for  aught 
else  than  to  suffer  tribulation:  for  all  this  mortal 
life  is  full  of  sorrows,  and  crosses  fence  it  round 
about. 

And  the  higher  thou  shalt  attain  in  spirit,  so 

[  '36  ] 


J>pmtuaf  (B^ercieee 

much  the  heavier  shalt  thou  find  thy  cross;  the 
pain  of  exile  shall  grow  greater  with  thy  greater 
love. 

And  yet  though  thou  art  afflicted  in  manifold 
ways,  thou  shalt  not  lack  some  intermixture  of 
consolation;  for  thou  shalt  become  aware  of  the 
rich  harvest  sprouting  within  thee  that  grows 
from  the  suffering  of  the  cross. 

For  if  thou  shalt  willingly  bend  beneath  it,  all 
the  heaviness  of  tribulation  will  turn  into  trust  in 
the  divine  compassion. 

Resolution: 

This  day,  and  to-morrow  and  to-morrow,  I  will 
construct  before  my  inward  eye,  my  inward  ear, 
my  inward  folded  hands,  an  image  of  holiness. 
Toward  this  I  will  aspire. 

Bead  mundo  corde. 

Amen. 


[  J37  ] 


XX 

(£$e  Uleuaf  JReptoacJ) 

“Co  001  aen  va,”  0oggiuti0e,  “e  vieti  la  ©era: 
non  v’arreatatc,  ma  otudiate  tl  paaao, 
menrrc  cl?e  roccidentc  non  0’anncra.” 

•purgatorto,  jcjcvti,  61//3 

HE  other  regulations  for  other 
hours  of  the  day  I  may  pass  over 
lightly.  If  our  Solitary  lives  in  a 
monastery,  he  will,  at  meals,  listen 
to  what  lections  the  prior  may 
deem  fit;  but  if  he  live  in  a  hermitage,  or  have 
a  table  to  himself,  it  is  well  for  him  to  have  some 
book  quite  different  from  the  solemn  books  of 
his  severer  studies.  He  will  do  well  to  read  com¬ 
edy.  If  there  be  a  God,  He  is  God  of  laughter 
as  well  as  of  tears;  Christianity  has  gone  astray 
in  worshiping  its  God  solely  as  a  Man  of  Sor¬ 
rows.  A  universal  God  must  enter  at  the  door 
of  grief,  but  he  must  also  enter  by  the  door  of 
heart-easing  mirth.  On  the  book-rest  upon  his 
table,  just  to  the  left  of  his  plate,  let  the  recluse 
put  a  volume  of  Moliere,  Cowper’s  Letters,  Gol¬ 
doni,  Henri  Meilhac,  or  such  a  delightful  little 
play  as  Lo  es  posible ,  or  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield , 
Foil  de  Carotte ,  II  Piccolo  Mondo  Antico ,  Ve  Journal 
de  Madame  de  La  Lour  du  Pin ,  or  Par  tar  in  de 

[  138  ] 


f£f Uleuaf  KReproacfl 

Tarascon.  Of  such  books  Don  Ouixote  is  the  non- 
pareil.  But  the  recluse  must  consult  his  taste,  and 
if  he  finds  in  light  comedy  or  farce  too  tart  a  con¬ 
trast  with  his  habitual  thoughts,  let  him  read 
Izaak  Walton’s  Lives ,  Port  Roy al,  Lhe  Journal  of 
John  Woolman,  or  Tolstoi’s  Confessions ,  or  any 
such. 

And  in  the  evening,  seated  in  his  room,  gaz¬ 
ing  at  the  patch  of  sky  bounded  by  his  window- 
frame,  or  pacing  the  silent  garden  path,  he  must, 
under  the  rules,  give  himself  over  to  contem¬ 
plation  for  the  period  of  half  an  hour.  Let  him 
abstract  himself  from  things  of  sense,  push  fan¬ 
cies  and  memories  aside,  narrow  more  and  more 
his  field  of  consciousness,  and  finally  draw  his 
attention  in  toward  the  centre,  until  he  fix  it  as 
best  he  may  upon  some  single  point  at  the  very 
heart  of  his  deepest  desire;  let  him  lose  self,  if 
not  in  ecstasy  like  some  Christian  mystics,  at 
least  on  the  ethereal  summits  of  untroubled  se¬ 
renity.  Surely  the  Buddha  Gautama  helped  his 
fellows  to  deliverance  from  woe,  from  vulgarity, 
from  the  illusions  of  the  World’s  teachings. 

Such  then,  in  brief,  are  the  ways  of  life  in  a  retreat 
to-day,  for  the  penitent  who  desires  to  profit  by 
the  methods  of  Christian  tradition  and  to  spare 

[  *39  ] 


pvo  Vlita  &)onaetica 

himself  the  labyrinthine  difficulties  of  finding 
the  right  road  by  himself. 

Not  everybody  can  profit  by  a  retreat,  not 
everybody  wishes  to;  and  yet  the  very  unwill¬ 
ingness  of  children  of  the  World  to  reconsider 
the  values  that  the  World  teaches  them  is  a  rea¬ 
son  for  such  reconsideration;  just  as  it  is  good 
for  young  men  born  and  bred  in  one  country 
to  travel  and  acquaint  themselves  with  the  ways 
and  thoughts  of  other  nations,  since  they  may 
learn  that  ideas  and  beliefs  which  they  had  been 
taught  at  home  to  accept  as  standards  for  all  hu¬ 
manity,  need  to  be,  in  the  interests  of  human¬ 
ity  and  of  themselves,  reexamined  and  rejudged. 
The  pursuit  of  inward  peace,  the  conquest  of  the 
bodily  appetites,  the  cultivation  of  self-renuncia¬ 
tion,  reverence,  aspiration,  and  whatever  fruits 
of  the  spirit  may  be  gathered  from  the  tree  of 
self-consecration  —  these  are  desirable,  and  they 
should  be  sought  systematically.  For  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  such  systematic  teaching,  retreats  have 
been  established;  they  are  spiritual  schools,  and 
of  many  kinds.  In  some,  pupils  teach  them¬ 
selves;  in  others,  they  are  directed.  When  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena  was  forbidden  by  her  parents 
to  retire  to  her  bedchamber  to  worship,  she  made 
a  cell  within  her  soul  to  which  she  withdrew  for 

[  HO  ] 


(C^c  Uituae  5Reproac^ 

prayers  and  sacred  thoughts.  St.  Francis  de 
Sales  says,  that  as  birds  fly  to  their  nests,  and 
deer  seek  the  shady  recesses  of  the  forest,  so  hu¬ 
man  beings  in  the  very  thick  of  worldly  affairs 
or  social  frivolity  should  withdraw  for  however 
short  a  time  into  the  privacy  of  their  own  souls. 
St.  Catherine  and  those  penitents  whom  St.  Fran¬ 
cois  de  Sales  advised  were  not  free  to  forsake  the 
world ;  but  for  such  as  were,  ancient  tradition,  ac¬ 
cepting  the  example  of  Christ  and  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  counseled  a  retreat  of  forty  days  in  the 
desert.  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  prescribed  thirty  for 
the  practice  of  his  spiritual  exercises.  Modern 
spiritual  directors  consult  the  circumstances  of 
their  penitents.  But  in  the  matter  of  retreats,  as  in 
other  human  affairs,  it  is  always  easier  to  do  what 
others  have  done  than  to  make  a  way  for  oneself, 
and  a  man  seesawing  between  yes  and  no  will 
often  follow  another’s  example;  such  hesitants 
need  the  countenance  and  encouragement  that 
radiate  from  men  who  devote  their  whole  lives 
to  the  contemplative  virtues.  Life-long  recluses, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  can  never  number  more 
than  a  handful,  even  of  such  as  are  discontent 
with  the  aims  and  interests  of  the  World.  But  the 
footprints  of  a  single  man  may  point  the  path  to  a 
multitude  that  have  lost  their  way;  and  it  might 

[  *4i  ] 


pto  Vlita  Qfyonaztka 

well  be  that  the  bare  vision  of  a  recluse  living 
in  some  sequestered  spot,  frugal,  self-denying, 
practising  the  contemplative  virtues,  indifferent 
to  material  welfare  and  social  consideration,  and 
radiantly  serene,  would  persuade  two  or  three, 
or  five  or  ten,  to  practise  a  retreat  for  a  time.  For 
the  sake  of  such  persuasion  it  might  be  worth 
while  for  men  weary  of  the  World,  or  born  with¬ 
out  a  taste  for  it,  to  become  in  some  modern 
fashion  out-and-out  monks  or  hermits.  What  if 
their  doing  so  should  be  foolishness  in  the  eyes 
of  the  World,  and  a  stumbling-block  to  many 
who  are  trying  in  their  own  way  to  reform  the 
World  from  within?  Is  it  not  worth  while  for 
men  of  ascetic  beliefs  to  run  risks,  or  even  to 
sacrifice  themselves,  for  a  high  hope?  Men  are 
sacrificed  in  the  World  every  day  for  causes  far 
less  meritorious.  What  if  the  reformers  within 
the  World  protest,  as  reformers  will,  against 
reforms  that  do  not  wear  their  brand  ?  The  needs 
of  humanity  justify  any  honest  experiment.  Let 
us  look  about  us:  at  the  wars  between  nations, 
the  struggle  between  classes,  the  selfishness  of 
the  rich,  the  intemperance  of  the  poor,  the  want, 
sickness,  sin,  that  abound,  the  vice  that  pollutes 
city,  village,  and,  it  is  said,  remote  farmhouses, — 
to  such  a  degree  that  were  the  comfortably  off  by 

[  *+2  ] 


Vleuai  foeptoactf 

some  evil  fate  thin-skinned  they  could  not  en¬ 
dure  it, — the  bickering  between  Christian  sects 
and  all  the  ills  that  come  because  we  do  not  fol¬ 
low  the  teachings  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Does  not 
this  spectacle  justify  any  experiment,  even  the 
revival  of  mediaeval  methods,  in  the  hope  to 
persuade  men  to  do  what  Jesus  bade?  And  the 
principles  of  the  retreat  are  not  without  creden¬ 
tials;  they  are  warranted  by  the  self-denial,  the 
self-effacement,  the  self-consecration  of  the  re¬ 
cluse  and  the  solitary. 

Here  let  me  say  a  word  as  to  the  usual  re¬ 
proach  addressed  to  solitaries. The  W orld  charges 
them  with  selfishness.  I  raise  no  question  as  to 
whether  the  World  might  better  confine  this  crit¬ 
icism  to  its  own  members ;  I  only  ask,  in  what 
respect  recluses  or  hermits  are  more  selfish  in 
their  attitude  toward  the  World  than  the  World 
in  its  attitude  toward  them?  The  World  wishes 
the  recluse  to  renounce  his  creed,  to  come  back, 
take  his  place  in  the  turmoil  of  business  and 
pleasure,  do  as  the  World  does,  help  pile  the 
bricks  and  lay  the  girders  of  its  Tower  of  Babel. 
Is  this  unselfishness  on  its  part?  The  World 
reiterates  that  the  recluse  belongs  to  the  same 
species  as  itself,  to  the  same  race,  nation,  clan, 
and  as  such  has  social  duties;  but  because  the 

[  !43  ] 


fito  Wta  tyonaetica 

World  is  gregarious  and  follows  the  ethics  of 
the  herd,  must  solitaries  fall  in  line,  like  sheep, 
and  do  as  others  do?  Beyond  question  this  gre¬ 
garious  morality  has  been  of  marked  service  in  the 
long  interracial  struggle  for  physical  existence, 
by  holding  together  the  members  of  the  group, 
for  defence  or  attack,  and  in  economic  matters, 
though  at  an  immense  cost  of  individual  self- 
sacrifice.  But  the  goal  of  this  system  is  the  tri¬ 
umph  of  species,  race,  or  nation;  and  the  brightest 
prospect  of  the  achievement  of  such  triumph 
leaves  the  recluse  cold  and  indifferent.  For  him, 
the  system  is  a  mere  social  policy,  wise  for  the 
mass  of  men,  but  not  of  universal  obligation. 
Why,  then,  should  he  accept  the  World’s  ethics? 
The  World  is  no  more  within  its  rights  when  it 
bids  the  recluse  wear  its  livery  than  the  recluse 
would  be  within  his  were  he  to  ask  the  World  to 
follow  Schopenhauer  and  reject  the  will-to-live. 

For  the  recluse  each  man  lies  under  a  personal 
responsibility  for  what,  in  the  old  phrase,  he  calls 
the  salvation  of  his  soul ;  and  though  it  is  his 
duty  to  consult  as  wide  an  experience  as  he  can 
before  he  constructs  his  theory  of  salvation,  he 
must  nevertheless  construct  that  theory  for  him¬ 
self.  If  it  be  thrown  up  against  him  that  in  re¬ 
jecting  gregarious  morality  he  is  advocating  sel- 

[  *44  ] 


fCfie  Vleuai  KRepv oatty 

fishness  as  against  altruism,  I  can  only  say  that 
in  all  the  monks  or  hermits  of  whom  I  have 
read — I  speak  of  such  as  have  become  monks  or 
hermits  from  inner  conviction  and  not  in  obedi¬ 
ence  to  custom,  or  love  of  ease,  or  any  species 
of  shirking  —  I  have  found  a  degree  of  unselfish¬ 
ness  rarely  to  be  matched  among  secular  persons. 
The  recluse  believes  in  unselfishness,  but  he  finds 
the  sanction  elsewhere  than  in  ancestral  habits;  he 
hopes,  however  frail  that  hope,  however  wrapped 
about  by  darkness,  that  unselfishness  receives 
the  sanction  of  the  good  pleasure  of  God.  He  is 
vague,  of  course,  mystical,  irrational,  in  his  spec¬ 
ulation.  He  believes  —  if  fantastic,  iridescent, 
ever  shifting,  vaporous  images  of  beauty  may  be 
called  belief — in  the  spiritual,  by  which  he  means 
the  true  interests  of  the  soul :  everlasting  if  the 
soul  is  everlasting,  temporary  if  the  soul  is  lim¬ 
ited  in  time.  And  his  awkward  attempt  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  spiritual  from  the  ethical,  as  ethics 
are  usually  accepted,  lies  in  this,  that  ethics  seem 
to  find  their  sanction  in  the  welfare,  or  reputed 
welfare,  of  the  tribe,  or  at  amplest,  of  the  human 
race;  whereas  the  spiritual,  as  he  dares  to  hope, 
depends  for  its  sanction  on  a  love  and  know¬ 
ledge  of  a  divine  will.  And  his  answer  to  the 
perpetual  reiterations  of  the  World  that  his  very 

[  *45  ] 


fito  Vlita  Qftonastka 

hopes,  thoughts,  yearnings,  consciousness,  are 
social  products,  like  his  food,  is  that  he  recks 
not  who  grew  the  grain,  or  ground  the  corn,  or 
baked  the  bread,  but  merely  whether  it  will  sat¬ 
isfy  his  hunger.  He  will  not  believe  that  his 
deepest  affections  are  merely  animal  instincts, 
whatever  their  origin,  nor  that  his  yearning  for 
God  is  merely  an  imperfect  organization  in  the 
cells  and  fibres  of  his  brain. 

These  suggestions  are  but  frontier  defences; 
the  citadel  of  his  position  is  this:  that  humanity 
is  the  larger  circle  that  embraces  both  the  recluse 
and  the  World.  Let  the  monks  build  their  mon¬ 
asteries  in  the  Alps,  the  Apennines,  the  Andes, 
or  the  Himalayas,  or  the  hermit  find  his  cave 
or  pitch  his  tent  where  he  will,  neither  they  nor 
he  are  without  influence  upon  the  World,  or  un¬ 
related  to  its  inhabitants.  The  archetypes,  St. 
Anthony  and  St.  Benedict,  are  evidence  enough. 
There  is  not  a  hermit  but  of  him  some  one 
may  say, 

Oft  have  we  seen  him  at  the  peep  of  dawn 
Brushing  with  hasty  steps  the  dews  away, 

and  they  that  see  him  go  their  ways  with  some 
new  reflections  concerning  life,  some  fresh  ex¬ 
amination  of  the  things  they  live  by.  When  they 

[  h6  ] 


(ICtfe  Vteuat  foeptoacfj 

pass  a  house  of  retreat  perhaps  they  perceive  a 
quietness  that  they  do  not  find  at  home,  perhaps 
they  scent  the  fragrance  of  the  garden,  perhaps 
they  hear  the  note  of  an  organ  or  the  words  of 
a  psalm,  perhaps  they  find  those  within,  though 
with  none  of  the  possessions  that  they  call  good, 
serene  and  calm.  Honest  seekers  of  spiritual  peace 
are  justified  by  their  works.  No  man  can  save  his 
own  soul  without  necessarily  helping  his  brother 
save  his  soul  likewise. 


[  H7  ] 


XX3, 

REtfe  invent  j£>it man  Iflecb 

Sn  l^fg^wap  eljall  be  tl?cre  .  .  .  and 
it  £l?all  be  called  tl?e  wap  of  tjoltneaa. 

Jsaial?,  jcjcjev:  8 

NE  more  word.  If  it  is  sure  and 
indubitable  that  there  is  a  God, 
then  it  is  sure  and  indubitable 
that  some  body  of  men  should 
set  themselves  apart,  whether  for 
life  or  for  a  season,  to  seek  a  knowledge  of  Him 
and  of  his  will,  in  ways  quite  different  from 
those  in  which  dwellers  in  the  World  seek  Him, 
supposing  that  some  dwellers  in  the  World  do 
really  seek  Him.  Foreven  if  this  segregated  body 
makes  no  discovery,  reaches  no  port,  and  seems 
to  sail  over  the  high  seas  of  thought  and  hope 
in  vain,  nevertheless  no  voyage  of  discovery  is 
wholly  fruitless,  for  like  other  seekers  after  know¬ 
ledge  these  adventurers  render  a  general  service 
by  the  elimination  of  wrong  courses  and  erro¬ 
neous  hypotheses.  They  bestow  upon  men  the 
hope  that  the  routes  of  error  are  being  crossed 
off  the  old  charts  of  life  and  that  the  chances  of 
attainment  grow  brighter  and  brighter. 

If  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  be  a  God  or 

[  148  ] 


RZtfe  l&wat  fouman  tlccb 

no,  it  is  still  of  equal  importance  that  a  search  be 
made,  that  seekers  scatter  abroad  and  look  in  ail 
directions,  study  their  own  hearts,  examine  things 
metaphysical,  ponder  upon  ecstasy  and  rapture 
and  the  passionate  love  of  the  infinite  that  pos¬ 
sesses  the  souls  of  men  now  and  again.  There  are 
enough  students,  philosophers,  savants  in  the 
World  to  investigate  the  laws  of  matter,  the  ways 
of  organic  life,  and  track  the  flying  footprints  of 
Nature  into  her  deepest  recesses. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  it  is  sure  and  indu¬ 
bitable  that  there  is  no  God,  that  the  World  is 
right,  that  motion  in  space  is  the  ultimate  truth, 
and  that  in  the  search  of  truth  the  methods  of 
science  are  the  only  methods:  that  what  science 
busies  itself  with  is  the  only  thing  to  busy  one¬ 
self  with.  Nevertheless,  as  I  think,  the  need  of 
the  contemplative  and  the  solitary  will  become 
all  the  greater.  If  the  formation  of  crystals,  the 
habits  of  bees,  the  usages,  affections,  and  thoughts 
of  men,  are  all  on  one  level  of  significance,  all 
mere  varying  records  of  chance  throbbings  of 
some  irrational,  unintelligent  power,  if  there  is 
no  further  truth  beyond  some  possible  door,  then 
men  must  take  account  of  this  situation,  and  do 
what  little  may  be  in  their  power  to  improve  it. 
The  hypothesis  assumes  that  truth  has  no  claim 

[  *49  ] 


fito  Vkita  d^onaeftca 

to  any  of  the  solemnity,  the  devout  service,  the 
reverence  that  the  religious  attitude  of  mind  has 
invested  it  with;  the  inmost  shrine  of  truth,  to 
borrow  an  ancient  phrase,  has  no  more  title  to 
respect  than  the  smoking-room  of  a  Pullman  car ; 
beauty  deserves  no  worship;  the  sacred,  the  sub¬ 
lime,  are  mere  antiquated  names  to  conceal  igno¬ 
rance,  to  designate  that  which  shall  one  day,  when 
knowledge  progresses  still  further,  become  com¬ 
mon,  commonplace,  vulgar.  Love,  at  its  height,  is 
no  more  than  the  exuberant  and  excessive  devel¬ 
opment  of  the  primary  instincts.  Such  is  the  sit¬ 
uation  which,  under  the  hypothesis,  we  confront. 

The  element  in  the  situation  that  in  especial 
concerns  the  subject  of  this  brief  is  that,  explain 
it  as  we  may,  —  for  the  explanation,  whatever  it 
should  be,  is  immaterial,  —  man  has  a  need  of 
something  holy.  He  has  become  accustomed  to 
a  theory  that  there  is  some  supreme  goal  toward 
which  he  should  set  his  face;  that  the  love  of 
the  mother  for  her  son,  of  David  for  Absalom,  of 
Dante  for  Beatrice,  of  St.  Augustine  for  his  God, 
are  somehow  rays  that  shine  from  out  the  clouds 
which  veil  the  goal;  and  that  truth  and  beauty 
likewise  are  beams.  To  find  some  makeshift  is 
now  his  task.  Holiness  has  become  a  need,  his 
deepest  most  abiding  need,  and  he  cannot  ignore 

[  J5°  ] 


( TCtfC  i&teat  $>uman  tlceb 

it.  Without  the  possibility  of  a  God,  our  backs 
are  to  the  wall,  and  we  must  make  an  heroic  effort 
to  confront  reality. 

The  need  of  holiness,  perhaps,  will  not  be 
granted.  But  I  shall  assume  it.  And,  as  there  is 
nothing  known  to  us  in  the  universe  higher  than 
man,  I  assume  that  holiness  must  be  created  out 
of  the  ideas  and  out  of  the  lives  of  men.  I  assume 
that  the  type  of  man  called  holy  is  needful  to 
men,  that  his  holiness  is  of  a  value  to  be  set  beside 
the  capacity  of  the  master  of  a  great  industry, 
the  ingenuity  of  a  man  of  science,  the  creative¬ 
ness  of  an  artist.  Such  a  type,  without  belief  in 
a  God,  will  be  difficult;  but  this  is  a  difficulty  to 
which  men  must  address  themselves.  If  I  may 
compare  that  which  we  are  accustomed  to  call  the 
spiritual  with  an  idea  evolved  in  the  most  worldly 
class  in  society,  the  idea  of  holiness  is  not  with¬ 
out  similarity  to  the  idea  of  honor.  The  simi¬ 
larity  lies  in  this:  Honor,  in  the  antiquated  sig¬ 
nificance  of  the  word,  is  a  fantastic,  irrational 
idea,  which  was,  if  not  created,  at  least  cultivated 
by  men  of  a  certain  special  education,  men  in¬ 
stilled  in  early  youth  with  certain  definite  dog¬ 
mas,  trained  to  accept  certain  values,  disciplined 
to  act  with  unquestioning  obedience  to  their 
creed.  This  creed  constrained  them  to  perform 

[  151  ] 


fito  Wta  Qtyonaetica 

actions  which  lie  beyond  the  range  of  self-inter¬ 
est — as  self-interest  is  interpreted  in  the  theo¬ 
ries  which  cluster  around  the  hypothesis  that  life 
is  a  battle  for  the  preservation  of  self — and  to 
conduct  themselves  in  a  manner  that  does  not  fit 
into  the  usual  interpretation  of  the  good  of  the 
race.  The  men  who  accepted  this  creed  and  acted 
upon  it  were  called  gentlemen.  It  is  quite  apart 
from  the  parallel  suggested,  that  the  limitations, 
the  essential  wrongness,  of  the  creed,  be  granted 
or  disputed.  The  creed  has  exerted  a  very  marked 
influence,  and  even  now,  perhaps,  a  man  would 
regard  as  the  strongest  possible  mode  of  affirma¬ 
tion  the  statement  made  upon  his  honor. 

As  with  the  idea  of  honor,  so  it  is  with  the 
idea  of  holiness;  a  special  class,  a  special  train¬ 
ing,  a  special  obedience,  are  necessary  to  produce 
and  maintain  this  sentiment.  In  order  to  sup¬ 
ply  the  spiritual  needs  of  men, —  I  am  speaking 
under  the  hypothesis  that  there  is  no  God,  no  life 
hereafter,  no  soul  apart  from  the  nervous  sys¬ 
tem, — a  definite,  unquestioned,  imperious  dogma 
that  holiness  is  a  sort  of  spiritual  honor  must  be 
created.  It  must  be  fashioned  out  of  a  material, 
matched  with  which  the  tertiary  rocks  of  the 
Laurentian  Mountains  are  easily  shaped  to  the 
craftsman’s  will;  it  must  be  wrought  out  of  ideas 

[  lS2  ] 


(€$e  USteat  ^>uman  tieeb 

that  exclude  the  divine,  and  out  of  a  godless  life. 
The  requisite  art  to  deal  with  such  material  de¬ 
mands  a  sort  of  spiritual  workshop  or  studio,  in 
which  the  craftsmen  shall  go  to  school.  And  how 
can  this  be  done  in  the  World,  where  men  are 
struggling  for  money  and  prodigal  in  spending 
it,  where  there  is  making  love  and  marrying, 
the  pursuit  of  notoriety,  office,  fame,  or  whatever 
else  ambition  may  desire?  How  in  such  a  hub¬ 
bub  can  poor  human  nature  hold  itself  free  from 
discontent,  envy,  vexation,  disappointment,  cov¬ 
etousness,  lust,  greed,  malice,  and  all  the  con¬ 
taminations  that  mar  and  stain  the  innocence  of 
holiness?  How  in  such  confusion  is  it  possible 
to  secure  renunciation,  serenity,  selflessness,  in¬ 
difference  to  outward  things,  or,  most  of  all,  con¬ 
centration  upon  one  single  end?  This  is  not,  of 
course,  to  deny  that  many  virtues  are  wrought  in 
the  World  —  energy,  courage,  love  of  justice  and 
mercy,  and  the  great  human  affections — and  best 
wrought  in  the  World.  And  yet  how  seldom, 
how  very  seldom,  have  any  of  these  virtues  ap¬ 
peared  in  secular  life  unspotted  by  injustice,  by 
prejudice,  by  intemperance  of  thought,  of  speech 
and  act,  by  desire  for  praise,  by  the  self-love  in¬ 
separable  from  the  pursuit  of  any  worldly  end! 
As  the  far-seeing  poet  says,  <£Es  bildet  ein  Ta- 

[  *53  ] 


pto  Ulita  tyonaetica 

lent  sich  in  der  Stille,”  and  holiness  demands  a 
talent,  many  talents,  of  a  special  sort,  and  these 
can  be  developed  only  in  solitude. 

No  doubt  there  is,  if  one  wishes  to  put  it  in 
this  way,  a  taste  for  holiness  just  as  there  is  a 
taste  for  refinement,  whether  in  art,  in  literature, 
or  in  conduct;  and  just  as  parents  and  school¬ 
masters  endeavor  to  implant  in  the  young  a  taste 
for  virtue,  so  it  should  be  possible  to  implant  in 
some  among  them  a  taste  for  holiness.  Such  a 
taste  would  never  be  universal,  it  would  not  be 
popular;  but  love  of  refinement  is  not  universal, 
not  even  popular,  and  the  same  holds  good  con¬ 
cerning  beauty.  If  one  will  but  reflect  how  great 
a  part  authority  plays  in  our  education,  our  cus¬ 
toms,  our  religion,  one  need  not  be  incredu¬ 
lous  as  to  the  possibility  of  establishing  a  taste 
for  holiness,  of  calling  out  talents  to  develop  that 
taste,  and  also  of  securing  means  to  cultivate 
such  talents. 

Because  monks  in  their  seclusion  and  hermits 
in  their  solitude  tried  of  old  to  achieve  holiness 
and  failed — if  indeed  they  failed  —  is  of  no  great 
weight  as  an  argument  that  men  should  not  try 
seclusion  and  solitude  again.  In  the  times  when 
men  believed  in  a  God,  it  was  possible  to  con¬ 
tend  that  God  might  be  in  every  place,  as  well 

[  1 54  ] 


RZtfe  iSteat  fynman  tleeb 

in  the  World  as  out  of  it;  but  now,  under  the 
hypothesis,  we  recognize  that  holiness  is  a  sen¬ 
timent,  a  taste,  a  work  of  art,  and  therefore  it 
plainly  requires  a  great  effort  of  social  and  indi¬ 
vidual  volition.  Let  men  strive  for  it  in  the  World 
if  they  can  be  persuaded  thereto;  but  let  other 
ways  be  tried  as  well.  Let  lonely  souls  go  off  by 
themselves,  and  let  the  World  feel  that  out  of 
solitude  may  come  a  light  that  shall  help  many 
along  their  way. 

The  sun  is  set,  the  moon  no  longer  shines, 
no  stars  twinkle  in  the  sky;  we  must  light  our 
candles,  or  we  shall  be  in  utter  darkness. 


(IZfje  <8n6 


Jfppenbt^ 


Jfppcnbi^ 

NOTES,  AND  TRANSLATIONS  OF  QUOTATIONS 
OPENING 

Thou  that  see’st  my  evil  ways,  worthless,  undutiful. 

Lord  of  the  heavens,  unseen,  immortal, 

Succour  my  frail  and  erring  soul, 

And  with  thy  grace  fill  up  its  emptiness: 

So,  though  I ’ve  lived  in  warfare  and  in  storm, 

That  I  may  die  in  peace  and  port;  and  though  my  life 
Was  vain,  at  least  be  my  parting  good. 

For  the  short  time  of  stay  that  still  remains, 

And  at  my  death,  grant  that  thy  hand  be  nigh, 

Thou  knowest  well  I  have  no  hope  elsewhere. 

Petrarch 

I  will  speak  to  the  Lord,  although  I  am  dust  and  ashes. 

Thomas  a  Kempt s 

My  Son,  thou  canst  not  attain  perfect  freedom  unless  thou 
wholly  deny  thyself.  Thomas  a  Kempis 

CHAPTER  I 

H  eading  :  It  is  not  given  to  all  men  to forsake  all  things ,  renounce  the 
World ,  and  adopt  a  monastic  life. 

Of  the  World,  St.  Fran<pois  de  Sales  says :  Qu’est-ce  que  le 
monde  ?  Le  monde  se  doit  entendre  de  ceux  qui  ont  une  affec¬ 
tion  dereglee  aux  biens,a  la  vie,aux  honneurs,dignites,  preemi¬ 
nences,  propre  estime,  et  semblables  bagatelles  apres  lesquelles 
tout  les  mondains  courent  et  s’en  rendent  idolatres. 

Sermon  pour  la  Nativite  de  Notre  Dame 

And  Pascal:  L’homme  est  visiblement  fait  pour  penser;  c’est 
toute  sa  dignite  et  tout  son  merite,  et  tout  son  devoir  est  de 
penser  comme  il  faut:  or  Pordre  de  la  pens£e  est  de  commencer 
par  soi,  et  par  son  auteur  et  sa  fin. 

[  159  ] 


Jtppenbi^ 

Or,  k  quoi  pense  le  monde  ?  Jamais  a  cela;  mais  k  danser, 
k  jouer  du  luth,  a  chanter,  a  faire  des  vers,  a  courir  la  bague,^. 

Pensees ,  Art.  xvm,  1 2 


CHAPTER  II 

Heading:  And  I  saw  this  world  in  such  guise  that  I  smiled  at  its 
cheap  appearance. 

Pascal  says :  En  voyant  l’aveuglement  et  la  misere  de  l’homme 
(et  ces  contrarietes  etonnantes  qui  se  decouvrent  dans  sa  na¬ 
ture),  en  regardant  tout  l’univers  muet,  et  l’homme  sans  lu- 
miere,  abandonne  a  lui-meme,  et  comme  egare  dans  ce  recoin 
de  l’univers,  sans  savoir  qui  l’y  a  mis,  ce  qu’il  y  est  venu  faire,  ce 
qu’il  deviendra  en  mourant,  incapable  de  toute  connaissance, 
j’entre  en  effroi  comme  un  homme  qu’on  aurait  porte  endormi 
dans  une  lie  deserte  et  effroyable,  et  qui  s’eveilleroit  sans  con- 
naitre  ou  il  est,  et  sans  moyen  d’en  sortir.  Pensees ,  Art.  vi,  1 

CHAPTER  III 

Heading:  Little  children ,  keep  yourselves  from  idols. 

The  quotation  concerning  Socrates  is  from  the  Phtedo  79. 

Lord  Bacon  says  :  A  recluse  leaves  the  world  out  of  a  love  and 
desire  to  sequester  a  man’s  self  for  a  higher  conversation. 

Essays 

Fenelon:  Si  vous  voulez  aimer  Dieu,  pourquoi  voulez-vous 
passer  votre  vie  dans  l’amitie  de  ceux  qui  ne  l’aiment  pas  et 
qui  se  moquent  de  son  amour  ?  Lettres  Spirituelles ,  No.  1 

CHAPTER  IV 

Heading:  They  were  strangers  to  the  World ,  but  very  close  famil¬ 
iar friends  to  God.  —  Thomas  a  Kempis 

Eugenie  de  Guerin  was  born  in  1805  and  died  in  1848.  She 
lived  in  Cayla,  a  little  place  in  southern  France.  Her  Journal 
was  published  in  1862,  her  Lettres  in  1864;  Sainte-Beuve  and 
Matthew  Arnold  made  her  known  to  the  public. 

[  160  ] 


JTppenfci^p 

CHAPTER  V 

St.  Anthony  was  an  Egyptian  Saint,  who  died  at  a  great  age 
about  356  a.d. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Heading  :  O  Lord,  grant  them  eternal  rest ,  and  let  light  everlasting 
shine  upon  them.  ( Benedictine  motto') 

St.  Benedict,  480-543  a.d.,  born  in  Nursia,  Umbria.  He 
founded  the  monastic  system  of  western  Europe.  St.  Gregory 
the  Great  wrote  his  life.  See,  Cuthbert  Butler,  Benedictine 
Monachism  and  Benedicti  Regula ,  and  Dom  Germain  Morin, 
V  Ideal  Monas ti^ue  et  la  Vie  Chretienne  des  premiers  jours. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Heading:  O  whosoever  had  a  spark  of  true  love  would  perceive  at 
once  that  all  worldly  things  are  full  of  vanity. —  Thomas  a  Kempis 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  1380-1471,  was  a  German  monk  who 
spent  most  of  his  life  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Agnes,  near  the 
town  of  Zwolle  in  the  Netherlands. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Heading:  My  Son ,  what  is  this  thing  or  that  to  thee?  Follow  thou 
Me.  —  Thomas  a  Kempis. 

Senancour,  1770— 1846.  Author  of  Fibres  meditations  ddun  soli¬ 
taire  inconnu,  Obermann ,  etc.  He  became  known  to  English 
readers  by  Matthew  Arnold’s  poem,  Obermann. 

Amiel,  1821—1881,  A  Swiss  scholar.  His  Journal  was  pub¬ 
lished  after  his  death;  his  poems,  which  are  less  well  known, 
were  published  in  his  lifetime. 


[  '61  ] 


Jfypen&i^p 


CHAPTER  IX 

Heading:  But  they  that  follow  Thee  from  contempt  of  worldly  things 
and  in  mortification  of  the  flesh,  show  themselves  to  be  truly  wise  ;  for 
they  have  passed  from  vanity  to  truth,  from  fiesh  to  the  spirit 

Thomas  a  Kempis 

CHAPTER  X 

See,  e.g.,  A.  J.  Balfour’s  Humanism  and  Theism. 


CHAPTER  XI 

The  quotations  from  Thoreau  are  taken  from  his  Journal. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

O  Virgin,  if  ever  tenderest  pity 

For  mortal  things  moved  thee  to  mercy, 

Incline  unto  my  prayer; 

Save  me  in  this  deadly  strife, 

Though  I  am  clay,  and  thou 
Of  Heaven  the  Queen. 

Petrarch 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Heading:  Passing  on  into  the  state  and  freedom  of  the  children  of 
God,  who  stand  above  the  present  and  fix  their  eyes  upon  eternal 
things.  —  Thomas  a  Kempis 

Iliad,  Book  XVI. 

Plato,  The  Apology. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Heading:  There  is  a  gentle  lady  in  heaven. — Inferno,  ii,  94 

The  mother  dolorous  was  standing 
Next  the  cross  a- weeping 
While  her  son  hung  there; 

[  162  ] 


^fppcnbt^ 

Her  groaning  heart, 

In  suffering  and  agony, 

The  sword  had  pierced. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  whose  reputation  as  a  man  of  science  has 
procured  him  a  hearing  for  many  strange  theories,  says:  The 
idea  of  Angels  is  usually  treated  as  fanciful.  Imaginative  it  is, 
but  not  altogether  fanciful;  and  though  the  physical  appear¬ 
ance  and  attributes  of  such  imaginary  beings  may  have  been 
overemphasized  or  misconceived,  yet  facts  known  to  me  indi¬ 
cate  that  we  are  not  really  lonely  in  our  struggle,  that  our  des¬ 
tiny  is  not  left  to  haphazard,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
laissez-faire  in  a  highly  organized  universe.  Help  may  be  re¬ 
jected,  but  help  is  available;  a  ministry  of  benevolence  sur¬ 
rounds  us — a  cloud  of  witnesses  —  not  witnesses  only  but 
helpers,  agents  like  ourselves  of  the  immanent  God. 

Reason  and  Belief 

CHAPTER  XVII 

Heading  :  I  am  the  light  of  the  world:  he  that  followeth  me  shall 
not  walk  in  darkness ,  but  shall  have  the  light  of  life. 

Philosophy  directs  us  to  that  spiritual  reality  which  is  the  only 
reality;  and  from  this  point  of  view  philosophy  and  religion 
are  one.  J.  S.  Haldane ,  Mechanism ,  Life  and  Personality 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

These  prayers  are  taken  from  St.  Augustine,  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Christina  Rossetti,  Dante,  Racine,  the  Psalms,  the  Breviarium 
Romanum ,  the  Benedicite ,  etc. 

CHAPTER  XIX 

Heading  :  There  are  many  to  be  found  that  zvish  to  be  able  to  con¬ 
template,  but  they  heed  not  to  practise  that  which  is  necessary  for 
contemplation.  —  Thomas  a  Kempis 

These  spiritual  exercises  are  based  on  those  of  St.  Ignatius 
Loyola. 


[  *63  ] 


Jfppen&t?? 

The  meditation  is  from  Tagore’s  Gitanali. 

The  meditative  sequences  are  from  The  Imitation  of  Christ. 

CHAPTER  XX 
Heading  : 

“  The  sun  is  setting  and  the  evening  comes  f 
He  said,  “  Tarry  not,  hut  hasten  on. 

While  the  west  is  not  yet  dark .” 

CHAPTER  XXI 

Goethe :  Talent  is  fashioned  in  retirement.  Torquato  Tasso 

Nietszche  says :  I  have  gradually  come  to  see  daylight  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  most  general  defect  in  our  methods  of  education 
and  training  :  nobody  learns,  nobody  teaches,  nobody  wishes 
to  endure  solitude.  (Niemand  lernt,  Niemand  strebt  darnach, 
Niemand  lehrt  die  Einsamkeit  ertragen.)  The  Dawn  of  Day 

We  retire  into  seclusion  ...  so  that  by  retirement  we  may 
collect  and  save  forces  which  will  some  day  be  urgently  needed 
by  civilization.  .  .  .  We  make  capital  and  try  to  safeguard  it. 

Human ,  All  Too  Human 

The  number  of  petty  vengeful  people,  and,  even  more,  the 
number  of  their  petty  acts  of  revenge,  is  incalculable.  The  air 
around  us  is  continually  whizzing  with  arrows  discharged  by 
their  malignity,  so  that  the  sun  and  sky  of  their  lives  are  dark¬ 
ened  by  them  —  and,  alas!  not  only  theirs,  but  more  often  ours 
.  .  .  and  this  is  worse  than  the  frequent  wounds  they  inflict 
upon  our  skins  and  hearts.  .  .  .  Well  then,  Solitude:  because  of 
this,  Solitude  !  The  Dawn  of  Day 

Le  malheur  des  hommes  vient  d’une  seule  chose  qui  est  de  ne 
savoir  pas  demeurer  en  repos  dans  une  chambre. 

Pascal,  Pensees,  Art.  xxi,  i 


[  l64  ] 


